The national dose registry for radiation workers in Switzerland

The national dose registry began operation in Switzerland in 1990. It is a database maintained by the Federal Office of Public Health. It contains personal, employment, and dosimetric data for all the radiation workers in the country. The data for about 60,000 currently employed radiation workers are transferred from ten external dosimetry services to the registry every month or every three months. The registry was initiated to assist national authorities in controlling and safekeeping of the occupational doses and to allow statistical evaluations. In autumn 1994 the new Radiation Protection Regulations came into effect. Based on the ICRP recommendations, the Regulations introduced lower limits for the annual dose, for the average dose over five years, and for pregnant women and defined the internal dose as an additive component to the total dose. All these items require a high quality registration of occupational doses. This can hardly be achieved without a central registry. This paper describes the design of the Swiss national dose registry in the frame of the particular organization of the personal dosimetry in this country. The database structure and the information content are presented. Special solutions for the data transfer have been found, as the registry is running completely decoupled from the dosimetry services. Applications of the registry for regulatory control, particularly in connection with the new Regulations are described. Some results of statistical analyses are presented. The possibilities and the limitations of using the registry for radioepidemiological studies are discussed.