Definition of a disability weight for human exposure to ionising radiation and its application to the justification of medical exposure

Kotre, John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1890-1160 (2025) Definition of a disability weight for human exposure to ionising radiation and its application to the justification of medical exposure. BJR|Open, 7 (1). tzae043.

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Abstract

Objectives: To establish a link between radiation dosimetry and disability-adjusted life-years (DALY) with the aim of quantifying the justification of medical exposures.

Methods: The health detriment, defined as lifetime loss of DALY at age of exposure to ionising radiation for a US-European population was calculated. A simple model of the relationship was fitted to the results. Apart from in late life within the latency period for radiation-induced cancers, most of the relationship can be adequately fitted to a straight line of negative gradient. The gradient of this line corresponds to a loss of DALY per year following exposure to radiation and is therefore equivalent to a disability weight used in the calculation of DALY.

Results: Radiation dose dependent disability weights for radiation exposure to a US-European population are estimated as 0.019 DALY/yr/Sv for males and 0.021 DALY/yr/Sv for females.

Conclusions: By comparing a range of 66 radiological examinations in terms of the disability weights of the disease or injury states with the disability weights resulting from the associated radiological exposures, it is demonstrated graphically that the resulting benefit is far greater than the detriment in every case.

Advances in knowledge: The definition of a disability weight for ionising radiation, proportional to effective dose as currently defined, can link radiation exposure to the existing large body of data on the DALY burden and disability weights for a wide range of diseases and injuries, providing a means for the quantitative justification of the benefit-detriment balance of medical exposures.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	BJR|Open
Publisher:	British Institute of Radiology / Oxford University Press
ISSN:	2513-9878
Departments:	Institute of Health > Medical Sciences
Additional Information:	(Colin) John Kotre, Visiting Professor, Institute of Health, University of Cumbria, UK. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Depositing User:	Insight Administrator
SWORD Depositor:	Insight Administrator
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2025 10:09
Last Modified:	14 Jan 2025 10:52
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/8561

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