Development of dose assessment model for children after returning to evacuation areas

Mori, Airi; Takahara, Shogo  ; Sanada, Yukihisa   ; Munakata, Masahiro 

Inhabitants residing in part of Fukushima Prefecture are now exposed to radiation due to radioactive materials released by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident. To mitigate the radiation doses, an additional dose of 1 mSv/y was adopted as a long-term dosimetric target, and some municipalities were designated as the evacuation area. The evacuation area has been narrowing along with the decreasing of air dose rate. It was decided that evacuation orders in parts of 5 municipalities are lifted in 2016-2017. Radiation dose will be an important information for the inhabitants to make a decision on whether to return or not. Many inhabitants are concerned about radiation doses, particularly doses to their children. In this study, we developed the dose assessment model for children to estimate radiation doses to children that returned to their hometown. As a result of our calculation, it was revealed that the doses will not cause any health effect but continual efforts to achieve the dosimetric target of 1 mSv/y are necessary.