Impact of Building Materials on Human Exposure to Indoor and Outdoor Background Ionizing Radiation Levels and Its Burden on the People in Makurdi Benue State
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Abstract
Exposure to ionizing radiation raises safety concerns. This necessitates monitoring of environmental radiation levels. Building materials obtained from sites with residual radioactivity are likely to increase the radiation burden. In this study, the effect of the type of building material on background levels of radiation was assessed and compared for buildings constructed with modern and traditional building materials. The indoor annual effective dose rate (IAED) and Outdoor annual effective dose rates (OAED) were found to be 1.3554±0.0445 and 0.2741±0.0029 for modern building types and 1.0115±0.0224 and 0.2505±0.068 for modern and traditional building types respectively. The Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk (ELCR) were found to be 6.2329x10-3 for modern and 4.7x10-3 for traditional building types. The difference in IAED for modern buildings was found to be statistically significant (t = 6.0517, p = 0.0001) while the OAED was not statistically significant (t = 0.3250, p = 0.3745). Modern building types were found to give rise to higher levels of radiation. It was concluded that the type of material contributed to the background levels of radiation.
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