Analysis of the risk index of radiation health using Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY)

Shimada, Kazumasa ; Kai, Michiaki*

In this study, we proposed that Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) to estimate radiation cancer risk in Japanese residents. Lifetime cancer mortality, incidence rate, and lives lost have been the previous indices of health risk associated with radiation protection. ICRP defined the detriment in Publication 60 by considering non-fatal cancers and the number of lives lost due to the difference in latent times. However, the detriment has the disadvantage that it can neither be appropriately interpreted nor used. Therefore, the common index is required to discuss health risk of radiation and the others. As a risk measure of both common health and environmental health, there is a disability-adjusted life year (DALY) that is developed from concepts of life lost. DALY was developed by Harvard University in 1990 and was further adopted to establish an order of priority for health issues by the World Health Organization (WHO). In this study, we calculated DALY to estimate radiation cancer risk and compared this with the radiation detriment to discuss the effectiveness of DALY.