Components of total irradiation dose in Switzerland and their ranges

The present knowledge about dose components in Switzerland and their ranges is reviewed. Considerable ranges are found for doses induced by radon decay-products and by cosmic and terrestrial radiation. Yearly doses from radon decay-products show average values between about 1 and 20 mSv in different communities and individual values up to about 150 mSv. The reliability of these average values is, however, limited, because radon concentrations have been measured up to now only in a small number of houses, and because corrections of the raw data are necessary, increasing the uncertainty of the results. Doses from terrestrial and cosmic radiation show locally variable values between about 0.5 and 1.5 mSv per year. These doses are mainly derived from outdoor measurements. Therefore, these results also are only of limited use in possible epidemiological applications.