Collective dose IRSN view on its indications and contraindications

The concept of collective protection appeared in 1959 in the first report of the international commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). During the course of the next decades, ICRP gave details on the use of collective dose, in particular on its role in the process of optimization of protection. The collective dose, effective and /or equivalent, may be used to assess the dosimetric impact of an activity or a source over a group of people, to assess the number of stochastic effects that could result from the exposure of a group of people. The methods of calculating the collective dose are considered, assessment of the levels of exposure, assessment of the health effects. I.R.S.N. reminds that the collective dose constitutes an indicator of the risk of stochastic effects for example in the field of regulatory dose limits. Consequently, the collective dose cannot in any case constitute an indicator of the deterministic effects. (N.C.)