Title: A review on comparison of natural radiation in Iran with other countries

Authors: Daryoush Shahbazi-Gahrouei; Samaneh Setayandeh; Mehrdad Gholami

Addresses: Department of Medical Physics and Medical Engineering, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran ' Department of Medical Physics and Medical Engineering, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran ' Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorram Abad, Iran

Abstract: The environment around people is radioactive due to receiving ionisation radiation from the sky, the Earth's crust, and atoms in water, food, building materials and metals. Around 82% of human absorbed radiation doses, which are out of control, are from natural radiations. It is considerable that the background dose rates from cosmic rays depend on the altitude and regions with high altitude have high radiation doses. Radionuclides like uranium and thorium that exist in the region's soil, type of building materials and the existence of some springs and quarries increase the dose rate of natural radiation in some regions. Because of the effect of natural radiation on the human health, in recent years several international studies have been done and different values were measured. In this paper a review and a comparison of the dose rates arising from natural sources to the Iranian population with other countries are reported.

Keywords: natural radiation; cosmic rays; indoor radiation; outdoor radiation; Iran; low radiation; ionisation radiation; human health.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLR.2013.054163

International Journal of Low Radiation, 2013 Vol.9 No.1, pp.1 - 11

Received: 17 Dec 2011
Accepted: 01 Apr 2012

Published online: 13 Sep 2014 *

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