Assessment of Radiation Risk Perception and Interest in Tritiated Water among Returnees to and Evacuees from Tomioka Town within 20 km of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

In this study, we aimed to investigate radiation risk perception, mental health, and interest in tritiated water among evacuees from and returnees to Tomioka town, Japan, as well as to evaluate the intention to return (ITR) among evacuees living inside and outside Fukushima Prefecture. Of the 1728 respondents, 318 (18.4%) and 1203 (69.6%) participants reported living outside and inside Fukushima Prefecture, and 207 (12.0%) reported living in Tomioka. The ITR was not significantly different between those who lived inside and outside the prefecture among the evacuees. Similarly, there were no significant differences in radiation risk perception, mental health, and interest in tritiated water. However, the evacuees were independently associated with a motivation to learn about tritiated water (OR = 1.242, 95%Cl: 1.041-1.438, p = 0.016), reluctance to consume food from Tomioka (OR = 1.635, 95%Cl: 1.372-1.948, p < 0.001), and concern that adverse health effects would occur because of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident (OR = 1.279, 95%Cl: 1.055-1.550, p = 0.012) compared to returnees, according to logistic regression analysis. Interestingly, the returnees were found to have better mental health but lower life satisfaction than the evacuees. These findings suggest the importance of ongoing risk communication about radiation exposure and tritiated water among residents regardless of their place of residency.

Application of the Commission's recommendations: the activities of ICRP Committee 4.

Committee 4 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is responsible for developing principles, recommendations, and guidance on the protection of man against radiation exposure; and considering their practical application in all exposure situations. The Committee also acts as a major point of contact between ICRP and other international organisations and professional bodies concerned with protection against ionising radiation. The current work of the Committee involves the development of a series of reports on implementation of the 2007 Recommendations, and a reflection on the ethical foundations of the radiological protection system. Following the accident in Fukushima, Committee 4 also initiated an analysis of management of the consequences of the accident, with the objective of revising, if necessary, the Commission's publications on emergency and post-accident situations.

Protection of people living in long-term contaminated areas after a nuclear accident: the guidance of ICRP Publication 111.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection provides guidance for the protection of people living in long-term contaminated areas after nuclear accidents or radiological emergencies in ICRP Publication 111 (Ann. ICRP 2009, 39(3)). The prolonged exposures resulting from such events are defined as existing exposure situations and the driving principle for managing exposure situations is the optimization of protection. In conjunction with optimization, the Commission recommends the use of reference levels to restrict individual doses. To be effective, protection strategies to maintain and reduce exposure as low as reasonably achievable should include actions implemented by public authorities and private businesses, but also by the affected population itself. The process through which inhabitants living in a contaminated environment identify problems and apply their own protective actions has been named 'self-help protection' by the Commission. Such a process supposes that affected individuals are fully aware of the situation and are well informed. It is the responsibility of the authorities to establish programmes for continuous radiation monitoring, information and education of the population. The involvement of local professionals and inhabitants in the definition and implementation of protection strategies is a key factor for the sustainability of long-term rehabilitation programmes.

How long is long-term? Reflections based on over 20 years of post-Chernobyl management in Norway.

The radiation protection community has only recently started the important work of preparedness for long-term post-accidental management of radioactively contaminated areas, like for instance the EC projects STRATEGY, FARMING and EURANOS and the French authorities' CODIRPA and PAREX programmes. There are, however, different views concerning how long a long-term management might last. Based on the Norwegian and former Soviet Union experience after the Chernobyl accident, it is clear that a nuclear accident can entail decades of necessary management and rehabilitation of living conditions. The time period is dependent on a number of factors, e.g. amount of fallout, type of radionuclides, land use of contaminated area, number and density of people affected and available techniques and resources for implementing countermeasures. This paper discusses the management strategy implemented in Norway after the Chernobyl accident, the need for changing strategy over time and the important involvement of affected groups. Careful planning and reflections should be undertaken before actions are taken in the recovery phase, keeping in mind the possibility of decades with problems.

Rehabilitation of living conditions in territories contaminated by the Chernobyl accident: the ETHOS project.

The ETHOS Project, supported by the radiation protection research program of the European Commission (EC), was implemented in the mid-1990's with the support of the Belarus authorities as a pilot project to initiate a new approach for the rehabilitation of living conditions in the contaminated territories of the Republic. This initiative followed a series of studies performed in the context of the EC Community of Independent States cooperation program to evaluate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident (1991-1995), which clearly brought to the fore that a salient characteristic of the situation in these territories was the progressive and general loss of control of the population on its daily life. Furthermore, due to the economic difficulties during the years following the breakdown of the USSR, the population was developing private production and, in the absence of know-how and adequate means to control the radiological quality of foodstuffs, the level of internal exposure was rising significantly. The aim of the project was primarily to involve directly the population wishing to stay in the territories in the day-to-day management of the radiological situation with the goal of improving their protection and their living conditions. It was based on clear ethical principles and implemented by an interdisciplinary team of European experts with specific skills in radiation protection, agronomy, social risk management, communication, and cooperation in complex situations, with the support of local authorities and professionals. In a first phase (1996-1999), the ETHOS Project was implemented in a village located in the Stolyn District in the southern part of Belarus. During this phase, a few tens of villagers were involved in a step-by-step evaluation of the local radiological situation to progressively regain control of their daily life. In a second phase (1999-2001), the ETHOS Project was extended to four other localities of the District with the objective to evaluate the feasibility of the application of the ETHOS approach by local professionals and authorities. The ETHOS experience has shown that the direct involvement of the population in the day-to-day management of the radiological situation was a necessary approach to complement the rehabilitation program implemented by public authorities in contaminated territories. It also demonstrated that to be effective and sustainable, this involvement must rely on the dissemination of a "practical radiological protection culture" within all segments of the population, and especially among professionals in charge of public health and education. This paper discusses the post-Chernobyl context in the early- and mid-1990's, which led Belarus authorities to look for new approaches to protect the population residing in the long-term contaminated territories of the Republic. It then describes the ETHOS methodology and its main results. It also summarizes the general conclusions that can be drawn from the ETHOS Project.