THE CHALLENGE IN USING THE RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF RESIDENTIAL RADON CONCENTRATION

Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2018 Sep 1;181(1):20-25. doi: 10.1093/rpd/ncy095.

Abstract

In the present study, the contemporary indoor radon activity concentration and the surface-deposited 210Po activity were measured in 65 Romanian dwellings. The activity of trapped 210Po on the glass surface was measured using the (CR-LR) difference technique. The retrospective radon activity concentration estimated on the basis of age-adjusted 210Po activity was found to have a geometric mean of 318 Bq m-3, being higher than the geometric mean (250 Bq m-3) of the contemporary indoor radon measurements, measured with two types of track detectors (RSKS and Radtrak2®). By applying Lin's concordance correlation coefficient, a substantial strength of agreement (rC = 0.94) was obtained between RSKS and Radtrak2® results, respectively a poor agreement (rC = 0.71) between the retrospective and contemporary methods. The ratio between contemporary and retrospective radon concentrations has a geometric mean of 0.8 and range from 0.2 to 3.9.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Air Pollutants, Radioactive / analysis*
  • Air Pollution, Indoor / analysis*
  • Housing*
  • Humans
  • Polonium / analysis*
  • Radiation Exposure / analysis*
  • Radiation Monitoring
  • Radon / analysis*
  • Risk Assessment
  • Romania

Substances

  • Air Pollutants, Radioactive
  • Polonium
  • Radon
  • Polonium-210