How much resources are reasonable to spend on radiological protection?

Abstract

In short terms, a society's available resources are finite and must be prioritised. The more resources that are spent on radiological protection, the lesser resources are available for other needs. The ALARA principle states that exposure of ionizing radiation should be kept as low as reasonably achievable, taking into account economic and societal factors. In practice, one of several approaches to determine what is considered as reasonably achievable is cost-benefit analysis. A demanding part of cost-benefit analysis is to decide on an α value, which stipulates the value of radiological protection. There are different conversion methods on how to convert societal costs into an α value. However, with the assistance of recent developments within both health economics and radiological protection room for improvements was found. Therefore, the aims of the present study were to develop a new conversion method (on how to convert societal costs into an α value) and to provide recommendations of α values for each member country of The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). With the help of systematic reviews of societal costs (the value of a statistical life, productivity losses and healthcare costs) and discount rates, as well as Monte Carlo simulations of the number of years between exposure and cancer diagnosis, a new conversion method and recommendations of α values could be presented. The new conversion method was expressed as a discounted nominal risk of exposure with a median (interquartile range) of 175 (136-222) per 10 000 persons per Sv for the public and 169 (134-207) per 10 000 persons per Sv for workers. For OECD in general, recommendations of α values were determined to be $56-170 per man.mSv for the public and $61-162 per man.mSv for workers (2023-USD).