Common basis of establishing safety standards and other safety decision-making levels for different sources of health risk

Current approaches in establishing safety standards and other decision-making levels for different sources of health risk are critically analysed. To have a common basis for this decision-making a specific risk index R is recommended. In the common sense R is quantitatively defined as LLE caused by the annual exposure to the risk source considered: R = annual exposure, damage (LLE) from the exposure unit. This common definition is also rewritten in specific forms for a set of different risk sources (ionising radiation, chemical pollutants, etc): for different risk sources the exposure can be measured with different quantities (the probability of death, the exposure dose, etc.). R is relative LLE: LLE in years referred to 1 year under the risk. The dimension of this value is [year/year]. In the statistical sense R is conditionally the share of the year, which is lost due to exposure to a risk source during this year. In this sense R can be called as the relative damage. Really lifetime years are lost after the exposure. R can be in some conditional sense considered as a dimensionless quantity. General safety standards Rn for the public and occupational workers have been suggested in terms of this index: Rn = 0.0007 and 0.01 accordingly. Secondary safety standards are derived for a number of risk sources (ionising radiation, environmental chemical pollutants, etc). Values of Rn are chosen in such a way that to have the secondary radiation BSS being equivalent to the current one's. Other general and derived levels for safety decision-making are also proposed including the de-minimus levels. Their possible dependence on the national or regional health-demographic data (HDD) is considered. Such issues as the ways of the integration and averaging of risk indices considered through the national or regional HDD for different risk sources and the use of non-threshold linear exposure - response relationships for ionising radiation and chemical pollutants are analysed. Recommendations are given on methods and criteria for comparison of various sources of risk. Some examples of risk comparison are demonstrated