Bringing Light into Darkness—Comparison of Different Personal Dosimeters for Assessment of Solar Ultraviolet Exposure

Claudine Strehl, Timo Heepenstrick, Peter Knuschke and Marc Wittlich
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Claudine Strehl: Department Ergonomics: Physical Environmental Factors, Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance, D-53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany
Timo Heepenstrick: Department Ergonomics: Physical Environmental Factors, Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance, D-53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany
Peter Knuschke: Department of Dermatology, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universitaet Dresden, D-01307 Dresden, Germany
Marc Wittlich: Department Accident Prevention: Digitalisation–Technologies, Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance, D-53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 17, 1-13

Abstract: (1) Measuring personal exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) poses a major challenges for researchers. Often, the study design determines the measuring devices that can be used, be it the duration of measurements or size restrictions on different body parts. It is therefore of great importance that measuring devices produce comparable results despite technical differences and modes of operation. Particularly when measurement results from different studies dealing with personal UV exposure are to be compared with each other, the need for intercomparability and intercalibration factors between different measurement systems becomes significant. (2) Three commonly used dosimeter types—(polysulphone film (PSF), biological, and electronic dosimeters)—were selected to perform intercalibration measurements. They differ in measurement principle and sensitivity, measurement accuracy, and susceptibility to inaccuracies. The aim was to derive intercalibration factors for these dosimeter types. (3) While a calibration factor between PSF and electronic dosimeters of about 1.3 could be derived for direct irradiation of the dosimeters, this was not the case for larger angles of incidence of solar radiation with increasing fractions of diffuse irradiation. Electronic dosimeters show small standard deviation across all measurements. For biological dosimeters, no intercalibration factor could be found with respect to PSF and electronic dosimeters. In a use case, the relation between steady-state measurements and personal measurements was studied. On average, persons acquired only a small fraction of the ambient radiation.

Keywords: personal dosimetry; UV radiation; intercalibration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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