{"id":89451,"date":"2023-10-16T16:09:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T20:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=89451"},"modified":"2025-10-17T18:53:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:53:05","slug":"health-effects-workplace-exposure-to-radiation","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/health-effects-workplace-exposure-to-radiation\/","title":{"rendered":"Researching the Health Effects of Workplace Exposure to Radiation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Researching the Health Effects of Workplace Exposure to Radiation\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Exposure to ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer. This link is well known and was established by studying people exposed to very high levels of radiation, like the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of the Second World War. But in the workplace, levels of radiation exposure are much lower and happen over a longer period of time. And we know a lot less about how these exposures affects an individual’s risk of developing cancer or other diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New research from Carleton University’s Paul Villeneuve<\/a> will seek to shed light on the potential health effects of radiation exposure for people who work in radiology clinics, nuclear power plants, uranium mines and other workplaces where low levels radiation are simply part of the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carleton University researcher Paul Villeneuve<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A $560,000 grant from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR)<\/a> is funding this deep dive into the data of the National Dose Registry<\/a> maintained by Health Canada, and Villeneuve will conduct the analysis in collaboration with Health Canada, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Statistics Canada and the Ontario Occupational Cancer Research Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“People who are exposed to low levels of radiation in the workplace are not like people who were exposed to the atomic bomb radiation at Hiroshima or a nuclear power plant meltdown. These are much lower exposures” says Villeneuve, a Professor in Carleton’s Department of Neuroscience.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n

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