Reliability of the ICRP'S dose coefficients for members of the public. 1. Sources of uncertainty in the biokinetic models

During the decade following the Chernobyl accident, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) developed dose coefficients (doses per unit intake) for ingestion or inhalation of radionuclides by members of the public. The level of uncertainty in those coefficients varies considerably from one radionuclide to another, due largely to differences in the level of understanding of the biological behaviour of different elements in the human body. This paper is the first in a series that examines the sources and extent of uncertainties in the ICRP's biokinetic and dosimetric models for members of the public and the dose coefficients derived from those models. The present paper describes the different types of information generally used to develop biokinetic models for radionuclides, the main sources of uncertainty associated with each type of information, and the approach used in subsequent papers in this series to quantify the uncertainties in biokinetic and dosimetric estimates.