Dose assessment for recent inhabitants living adjacent to zones heavily contaminated from the Chernobyl fallout.

Within the framework of the "International Chernobyl Project," selected areas in the Republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia of the former USSR, contaminated by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident in 1986, were investigated by international teams. In addition, environmental studies were carried out in areas officially declared as "uncontaminated regions" in order to corroborate this classification and to provide reference baseline data for the simultaneously performed medical investigations on health effects in the contaminated areas. Altogether, 141 measurements of the gamma dose rate, both outdoors and indoors, were carried out. Also, the radionuclide concentration in 58 soil and food sample was determined. In addition, results from 1,620 individual film dosimeter readings were analyzed. The results show that, in areas adjacent to those officially designated as contaminated regions (137Cs surface ground contamination > or = 37 kBq m-2), levels of environmental fallout contamination are insignificant. The additional resulting committed effective dose over the next 70 years due to the fallout is only a fraction of the corresponding value from the natural radiation environment.