Table 1.

Summary of dose rates and cumulated doses as estimated in the present study

Samples/Animals/Human cohorts	Mean dose rate (range)a	Cumulative dose	Reference	Dose quantity	Remark
Cellular experiments	1000–60 000 μGy/h	1 mGy–8 Gy	[16]	Absorbed dose	Various endpoints including chromosome protein foci assays, chromosomal aberrations, and mutations
Animal experiments
Mice	780 μGy/h–22.6 Gy/h	0–49 Gy	[17]	Absorbed dose	US Janus database
Rats/mice	1350 μGy/h–240 Gy/h	20 mGy–68.2 Gy	[18]	Absorbed dose	European ERA data base
Mice	2, 42, 830 μGy/h	20, 400, 8000 mGy	[19]	Absorbed dose	Japanese IES experiment
Human cohorts
General population	0.3 (0.1–1) μSv/h	192 (80 800) mSv	[20]	Effective dose	Calculated from annual effective dose for world population; cumulative life-time doses assume an age of 80 years
HRBA population, India	<1 μGy/h	161 mGy	[22]	Absorbed dose to colon	Mean dose for cohort; dose rate estimate based on measurement of a randomly selected subset of the cohort
HRBA population, China	<0.24 μSv/h	84.4 mGy	[23–25]	Absorbed dose to colon; effective dose rate	Mean colon dose for HRBA cohort; dose rate estimate based on Yuan et al. [25], Morishima et al. [24]
Air crew	2 (<6) μSv/h	<200 mSv	[28–30]	Effective dose	Dose rate estimate based on mean annual effective dose and assumed 900 flight hours per years; cumulative dose assumes 40 years of work
Astronauts	~18 μGy/h	4.3 mSv	[31]	Hp(10), film badge	Dose rate and cumulative dose for 10 days Apollo mission
Mayak workers	<150 μGy/h	510 (0–6800) mGy	[35]	Hp(10), film badge	Dose rate estimated based on annual dose and assuming 2000 working hours per year
Chernobyl clean-up workers	320 μGy/h	160 mGy	[39]	Hp(10), film badge	Dose rate and cumulative dose for the first year after the accident; dose rate calculated based on individual time of employment and assumed continuous exposure
Windscale workers		3.5 (<43.9) mSv	[42]	Effective dose
Techa population	External: 4.3 (<25) μGy/h Internal: 14 (<340) μGy/h	400 (0–9000) mGy (external + internal)	[43]; M Degteva, priv. comm.	Red bone marrow dose	Dose rate estimates based on highest annual dose (in 1951) assuming chronic exposure
Fukushima: prefecture, not evacuated		<4.3 mSv (during first year)	[44]	Effective dose
Fukushima: precautionary evacuated settlements		<2 mSv (before and during evacuation)
Fukushima: deliberately evacuated settlements		<8.5 mSv

HBRA = high background radiation area; H_p(10) = personal dose equivalent; LSS = Life Span Study; ^adoses rates are given in units of μGy/h or Gy/h, for ease of comparison; priv. comm. = private communication. Note: UNSCEAR considers a dose rate of <6000 μGy/h, and a dose of <100 mGy as being low [11]. Note also that individual workers—depending on their profession—might have accumulated their recorded doses in a shorter time, i.e. that the assumption of continuous exposure over the whole working time may not always hold. In such cases, dose rates higher than estimated might have occurred.