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Background radiation is the ongoing exposure we all receive from natural and human-made sources. In the UK, most of this radiation arises from natural sources, with radon gas contributing significantly. Additionally, human activities like medical X-rays add to our annual radiation dose. Factors influencing your individual dose include your location, health status, diet, and occupation. Knowing the background radiation levels is crucial, especially before conducting experiments to ensure accurate measurement and analysis. This guide explores background radiation's origins, effects on health, and monitoring methods.
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Radioactivity 3 Background radiation
Background radiation • There are radioactive substances all around us, including in the ground, in the air, in building materials and in food. • Radiation also reaches us from space. • The radiation from all these sources is called background radiation.
Background Radiation • Most of the background radiation dose we receive in the UK is from natural sources (about half is inhaled as radon gas). • About 15% of our annual dose comes from human activities such as X-rays in hospital or at the dentist or emissions from nuclear establishments.
Your Background Radiation Dose The radiation dose you get in a year depends on: • where you live (the rock type in your locality), • your state of health (whether you require treatment or investigation in hospital that involves ionizing radiation ), • your diet (salt substitutes contain potassium rather than sodium and the percentage of potassium that naturally occurs in the radioactive form is higher than that of sodium), • your occupation (do you work in an environment that exposes you to nuclear radiation?)
Experiments • You need to count the background radiation before you perform an experiment. • The background count can then be deducted from the count in your experiment.
