Abstract
The discussion in other chapters indicates that the prediction of risk from the 222Rn decay chain in air requires a knowledge of the average concentration of each of the progeny throughout the period of exposure. The most accurate calculations of the dose to the lung use the separate estimates of the concentration of each of the progeny, requiring that the contribution of each to the total exposure be measured separately. An alternative approach is simply to measure the working level concentration directly, which implies that only the total potential alpha energy is measured in the sample of air. While this approach avoids several problems with instrumentation needs, it suffers from the fact that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between working level months (WLM) and dose to the lung. Under many environmental conditions, however, the correspondence is close enough (accurate to within about 20%) to justify use of the WLM as the index of exposure. In addition, the concentration of the progeny can also be estimated by measuring only the 222Rn concentration and then applying standard equlibrium ratios to estimate the concentration of the progeny. Since these ratios can depend on atmospheric conditions and ventilation rates, care must be taken to ensure that correct ratios for the particular structure are employed. The reader should refer to the chapter on exposures (Chapter 5) for a discussion of typical equilibrium ratios.
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Crawford-Brown, D.J., Michel, J. (1987). Measurement. In: Cothern, C.R., Smith, J.E. (eds) Environmental Radon. Environmental Science Research, vol 35. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0473-7_3
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