Total annual effective dose and health risk due to intake of natural radionuclides of some vegetables cultivated in suburban Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In this work, activity concentration of 40 K, 226 Ra, 232 Th, gross alpha and gross beta and annual effective dose due to ingestion of natural radionuclides were estimated for 10 types of popular food crops cultivated in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Owing to contribution of 40 K activity to the gross beta spectrum could potentially lead to overestimation of dose due to beta emitters, the calculated dose due to gross beta activity was proposed by subtracting the contribution of 40 K activity to the gross beta activity. The results indicated that the food crops samples in the sampling area posed no radiological threats to the consumers.