Monitoring of Indoor Radon and Assessment of Lung Cancer Risk to Population of Beit Ummar City in Palestine

Abstract

Background: Radon exposure is the second leading cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoking. The individuals exposed to radon in their homes prove that radon is a major environmental carcinogen. Material & Methods: Radon concentrations were measured using CR-39 passive dosimeters in Beit Ummar city. 150 dosimeters were distributed over the study area dwellings according to the fraction of the population. The exposure started from October 2014 and lasted for 90 days. The city was divided into five sectors with six categories for each; corridor, kitchen, living room, saloon, bedroom and store. The influence of floor number and building type was introduced. Results: Obtained results have recorded relatively high radon concentration in 73% of the studied houses. This is explained due to several factors such as poor ventilation, construction materials, and continuous usage of heating during this period and age of the building. Different parameters were calculated based on the measurements of track density of the distributed dosimeters in order to estimate the risk of radiation exposure; those parameters are: radon concentration (CRn), exposure to radon progeny (EP), indoor annual effective dose (AED) and number of lung cancer cases per year per million persons (LCC).