Principles of protection: a formal approach for evaluating dose distributions

Area of Science:

• Radiation Protection
• Health Physics
• Risk Assessment

Background:

• A core challenge in radiation protection is balancing individual radiation doses against collective or aggregated doses.
• Current practices require robust frameworks for evaluating dose distributions and their ethical implications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a mathematical framework for precisely comparing alternative distributions of individual radiation doses.
• To investigate evaluation principles from radiation protection, moral philosophy, and welfare economics.
• To identify a preferable principle for radiation dose assessment.

Main Methods:

• Development of a mathematical framework for comparing dose distributions.
• Investigation of established and novel evaluation principles.
• Application of formal properties to assess the identified principles.

Main Results:

• A new principle, bilinear prioritarianism, was identified.
• Bilinear prioritarianism demonstrates superior efficiency-related properties compared to current practices.
• This principle maintains other desirable properties without compromise.

Conclusions:

• Bilinear prioritarianism may offer an improved approach to radiation protection dose assessment.
• The framework allows for precise, principle-based comparisons of dose distributions.
• This research bridges radiation protection with ethical and economic evaluation methods.