Program Overview
Russian Health Studies Program
What is the Russian Health Studies Program?
The Department of Energy's (DOE) Russian Health Studies Program assesses worker and public health risks from radiation exposure resulting from nuclear weapons production activities in the former Soviet Union.
What are the Program's Goals?
The goals of this program are to:
- 1. Clarify the relationship between health effects and chronic, low-to-medium dose radiation exposures;
- 2. Estimate cancer risks from exposure to gamma, neutron,
and alpha radiation; and
- 3. Provide information to the national and international
organizations that determine radiation protection standards
and practices.
What kind of research is conducted?
Presently, DOE supports epidemiologic studies,
radiation dose reconstruction studies, and a tissue repository.
All research is focused on workers at the Mayak Production
Association (Mayak), which is Russia's first nuclear weapons
production facility, and on the residents of the communities
surrounding this facility. In 2005, researchers resolved important
issues related to the doses received by the population living near
the Techa River where radioactive wastes were released, and they
published more than ten articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
In 2006, researchers published 32 articles in peer-reviewed scientific
journals. In 2007, researchers published 25 articles in peer-reviewed
scientific journals, including 6 articles in the September Issue of
Health Physics. The entire issue was devoted to the methodology for
reconstructing radiation doses in 18,831 Mayak workers first employed
between 1948 and 1972. Researchers published 30 articles in 2008, 12
articles in 2009, and 15 articles in 2010, and 14 articles in 2011 in
peer-reviewed scientific journals for a total of 242.
Contact Information:
Program Manager:
Barrett
N. Fountos, (301) 903-6740
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