The publisher's final edited version of this article is available at Radiat Environ Biophys
Abstract
The
relationship between radiation exposure from nuclear weapons testing
fallout and thyroid disease in a group of 2,994 subjects has been the
subject of study by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. In that study,
radiation doses to the thyroid were estimated for residents of villages
in Kazakhstan possibly exposed to deposition of radioactive fallout from
nuclear testing conducted by the Soviet Union at the Semipalatinsk
Nuclear Test Site in Kazakhstan between 1949 and 1962. The study
subjects included individuals of both Kazakh and Russian origin who were
exposed during childhood and adolescence. An initial dose
reconstruction used for the risk analysis of Land et al. (2008)
was based on individual information collected from basic questionnaires
administered to the study population in 1998. However, because data on
several key questions for accurately estimating doses was not obtained
from the 1998 questionnaires it was decided to conduct a second data
collection campaign in 2007. Due to the many years elapsed since
exposure, a well developed strategy was necessary to encourage accurate
memory recall. In our recent study, a focus group interview data
collection methodology was used to collect historical behavioral and
food consumption data. The data collection in 2007 involved interviews
conducted within four eight-person focus groups (three groups of women
and one group of men) in each of four exposed villages where thyroid
disease screening was conducted in 1998. Population-based data on
relevant childhood behaviors, including time spent in- and outdoors and
consumption rates of milk and other dairy products were collected from
women’s groups. The data were collected for five age groups of children
and adolescents ranging from less than 1 year of age to 21 years of age.
Dairy products considered included fresh milk and other products from
cows, goats, mares, and sheep. Men’s focus group interviews pertained to
construction materials of houses and schools, and animal grazing
patterns and feeding practices. The response data collected are useful
for improving estimates of thyroid radiation dose estimates for the
subjects of an ongoing epidemiological study.
