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Public awareness about ionizing radiation from natural sources
HRBKOVÁ, Jana
Ionizing radiation comes from artificial or natural sources. Greater collective exposure of the population is caused by natural resources. Natural sources of ionizing radiation are cosmic radiation and natural radionuclides (cosmogenic and terrestrial). Radon and its products are the main contributors of natural irradiation. In the Czech Republic, the average indoor radon concentration is 118 Bq/m3, which ranks us among the countries with the highest average concentration of radon in dwellings. Radon is considered to be the second leading cause of lung cancer. Due to the possible health risks from radon, there is an effort in our country and in many other countries to regulate radon concentration in some way. The purpose of this diploma thesis was to find out how much is the public aware of the issue of ionizing radiation from natural sources and to create information material on this topic. Also compare how some countries approach the issue of radon regulation. In order to collect necessary data for my thesis a questionnaire survey was conducted. I also used professional resources. The electronic survey, which I created on website www.vyplnto.cz, was filled in by 362 respondents. All the results of the survey were displayed in pie charts. Questions no. 3-16, which were focused on awareness, were also displayed in bar charts, which show the percentage of correct answers by level of education. Thanks to the data from the survey I was able to answer research questions. In the first research question, I asked whether the public is sufficiently informed about ionizing radiation from natural sources; in the second research question, I wanted to know who has the least awareness on this topic based on education. I evaluated that the public is not sufficiently informed and people with just primary education have the least awareness about this topic. In the Canva program, I also created information material about ionizing radiation, in the form of a double-sided A5 leaflet. It can serve to increase public awareness of the issue. With help of professional sources, I also found out how some countries regulate radon concentration. I paid particular attention to the Czech Republic, where the history of radon regulation dates back to the 1990.
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