Children’s Exposure to Radon in Nursery and Primary Schools
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Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2016 Apr; 13(4): 386.
Published online 2016 Mar 30. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13040386 PMCID: PMC4847048
PMID: 27043596
Pedro T. B. S. Branco, Rafael A. O. Nunes, Maria C. M. Alvim-Ferraz, Fernando G. Martins, and Sofia I. V. Sousa*
Helena Solo-Gabriele, Academic Editor and Alesia Ferguson, Academic Editor, Author information Article notes Copyright and License information
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4847048/
Abstract
The literature proves an evident association between indoor radon exposure and lung cancer, even at low doses. This study brings a new approach to the study of children’s exposure to radon by aiming to evaluate exposure to indoor radon concentrations in nursery and primary schools from two districts in Portugal (Porto and Bragança), considering different influencing factors (occupation patterns, classroom floor level, year of the buildings’ construction and soil composition of the building site), as well as the comparison with IAQ standard
values for health protection. Fifteen
nursery and primary schools in
the Porto and Bragança
districts were considered:
five nursery schools for
infants and twelve for pre-
schoolers (seven different
buildings), as well as eight
primary schools.
Radon measurements were performed continuously. The measured concentrations depended on the building occupation, classroom floor level and year of the buildings’ construction. Although they were in general within the Portuguese legislation for IAQ, exceedances to international standards were found. These results point out the need of assessing indoor radon concentrations not only in primary schools, but also in nursery schools, never performed in Portugal before this study. It is important to extend the study to other microenvironments like homes, and in time to estimate the annual effective dose and to assess lifetime health risks.
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