Dose Reconstruction Under the U.S. Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act

Details

• Personal Author:
  Neton JW
• Description:
  The United States nuclear weapons production workforce has been provided a compensation program which covers claims from workers for radiation-related cancer. The compensation decision is made through individual dose reconstruction followed by an estimate of the likelihood that a cancer was as least as likely as not due to the worker's occupational exposure. This program, which was established under the U.S. Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 (EEOICPA), compensates workers for cancer incurred as a result of exposure to ionizing radiation at over 300 U.S. Department of Energy and contractor facilities. Under the EEOICPA, the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has been designated as the agency responsible for reconstructing the radiation doses received by these workers. To date, NIOSH has received more that 25,000 cases that require individual dose reconstructions to specific organs or tissues that developed a cancer. Because the risk models used to compute causation are time dependent, all doses are reconstructed on an annual basis. The reconstructed doses include exposures from all possible pathways, including internal, external, environmental and medical exposures. To ensure that these cases are expeditiously processed in a fair and scientifically defensible manner, NIOSH has adopted a triage process that expedites processing and a reconstruction method that, to the extent possible, relies on standard consensus models. This paper provides a discussion of: 1) our experience with the application of standard ICRP models to these dose reconstructions; 2) a description of the techniques employed to efficiently process the large volume of cases we have received; 3) the progress made to date in the completion of dose reconstructions; and, 4) the current distribution of compensation rates by cancer type. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Environmental Health Environmental Monitoring Neoplasms Nuclear Power Plants Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Radiation Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Dose Reconstruction Cancer Compensation Dose-response Emission-sources Environmental-factors Exposure-assessment Exposure Assessment Ionizing-radiation Job-analysis Nuclear-energy Nuclear-radiation Occupational-exposure Radiation-exposure Radiation-facilities Radiation-measurement Work-environment

  More +
• Publisher:
  International Atomic Energy Agency
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary ; Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OCAS - Office of Compensation Analysis and Support
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-8
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20035469
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of the International Radiation Protection Association, October 19-24, 2008, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency, 2008 Oct; :1-8
• Contact Point Address:
  James W. Neton; U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Office of Compensation Analysis and Support, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226
• Email:
  jneton@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of the International Radiation Protection Association, October 19-24, 2008, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:af4fddd8a893a67581d0dd3d476fefa2388d9a56bdc74bf881839a4e1296f8877fda673a51dffe039e1baf1747a9c4db668646c5588e8cb0f449a4003a0c08d0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/187313/cdc_187313_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 60.25 KB ]