Development of Self-Questionnaire for Internal Dose Assessment by Food Ingestion

Background: The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant increased the level of anxiety related to the radioactive contamination of various foods sourced in Japan. Particularly, after the accident, the detection of artificial radionuclides in locally produced foods raised food safety concerns. In this study, the radioactivity concentrations and annual ingestions of K-40 and Cs-137 in food products commonly and frequently consumed by the general public were investigated, and the annual effective dose of each was evaluated. Materials and Methods: The 2016-2018 data from the Radiation Safety Management Report released by the Korea Nuclear Safety Technology Center was referenced for the evaluation of the amounts of K-40 and Cs-137 contained in food. Using the food-ingestion survey mentioned above as a reference, we selected 62 foods to include in our radioactivity concentration and dose assessment. We also developed a questionnaire and evaluated the responses from the subjects who answered the questionnaire. Results and Discussion: The radioactivity concentration of Cs-137 was found to be close to or below the level of minimum detectable activity. Additionally, the annual ingestion of 62 foods was 294.77 kg/yr, the effective doses from K-40 and Cs-137 were 136.4 and 0.163 mu Sv/yr, respectively. Conclusion: Thus, the findings confirmed that the effective dose from K-40 and Cs-137 in food tends to be lower than the effective dose limit of 1 mSv/yr suggested by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Publication 60. The questionnaire developed in this study is expected to be useful for estimating the annual effective dose status of Korean adults who consume foods containing K-40 and Cs-137.