Radiation safety and culture of prevention in the use of radioactive materials in industry : criteria and trends

As time goes by and experience is gained, modernization and technological development show the need to implement more complex programs and procedures to ensure a high level of compliance with radiation safety, particularly in those activities in which radioactive material is used in industry. A relevant aspect of present technology is the concern to introduce mechanisms to prevent radiological accidents or incidents, to ensure early detection of failures. This includes systems that either individually or as a whole, increase the level of responsibility of the different disciplines involved, so as to avoid a situation that could lead to loss of control of the facility or part of it. The prevention of an abnormal situation, overexposure of workers or unwanted risks, should be considered in the level of vulnerability of the facility, a concept drawn from international protection systems and which is applied directly in radiation safety. Preventive management, risk communication and proposals for change or improvement along with the detection of risks and training, constitute all the factors contained within prevention policies. Dose limitation, optimization and justification, old tools used for decades, could not be replaced by other modern concepts and criteria. ALARA culture (including performance indicators) should be considered. The atmosphere at work, working under pressure as well as other factors such as quality issues, ethics of prevention, etc. align with this idea of prevention and safety, besides changes in attitude, towards risk prevention (methods, reports, intervention guides, working instructions, and any other helpful tool), are followed by preventive, as well as predictive and corrective maintenance, applied to minimize the dose absorbed by workers. A clear policy of prevention is needed as well as an appropriate level of radiation safety which should be taken into account since the very beginning of the development of a given practice. All these concepts are being described in this paper. (author)