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EU-STRA-Strålevern

SHAMISEN/NMBU - Nuclear Emergency Situations - Improvement of Medical And Health Surveillance

Awarded: NOK 2.3 mill.

The EU-OPERRA SHAMISEN project started in 2016, with the goal of producing recommendations that would contribute to health surveillance and related communication with affected populations after nuclear accidents. Experience suggested that this was an area that had not been sufficiently addressed in current accident response planning in many European countries. It was also recognised that an update of emergency preparedness in this area was needed for a number of reasons. These include the fact that existing recommendations had a technical focus, with less attention paid to social, ethical, psychological issues and that the information tended to be directed towards the decisions made by experts rather than for support of affected populations. Finally, there have been a number of changes in legal and ethical requirements for health surveillance and epidemiological studies (e.g., related to data protection) that need consideration. NMBU was responsible for co-ordinating the final stage of the project which resulted in a set of 28 recommendations. These are aimed at improving preparedness for a nuclear accident, the early and intermediate phase and the long-term recovery phase. General principles that can be applied to other types of accidents and disasters were also identified. Each recommendation includes a 'why' (based on lessons learned), a 'how', and a 'who' (those responsible for implementing the recommendation). The document includes recommendations to improve training of professionals, establish disease registries to know whether these diseases increase after an accident, and establish evacuation protocols and routes if necessary. the results were widely distributed, to both professionals and the public, and have been translated into 6 different languages. An extension to the Shamisen was granted in 2017, and aimed to enhance Citizen Participation in preparedness for and recovery from a radiation accident through novel tools and APPs to support data collection on dose radiation measurements, health and well-being indicators. This includes an assessment of the societal and ethical challenges and implications of both the APPs and citizen science activities. Such challenges include issues of data privacy vs open access, and the ethical implications of linking exposure, health and psyhcosoical data through the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). In May 2019, NMBU organised an international Workshop to discuss these issues at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in Oslo, 23-24th May. This resulted in a report and a recommendation statement, and in addition the work was refered to by UNESCO's World Commission on Ethics of Science and Technology as part of its work on Ethical Challenges of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2020, recognising that a number of the challenges and lessons learnt from nuclear accidents were relevant to the Coronavirus pandemic, the SHAMISEN recommendations were adapted to management and survellence of COVID-19. A new consortium SICOMOR, was formed to follow-up this work. Finally, the results of SHAMISEN and SHAMISEN-SINGS have been gathered in a special issues if Environment International. Some articles have been available online since the end of 2020, the rest will be published in early 2021.

The Shamisen Project has made a significant contribution to improving prepardeness for Nuclear accidents. The recommendations were widely distributed, to both professionals and the public, through popular science, media and academic articles, and have been translated into 6 different languages. The international Shamisen-Sings workshop arranged by NMBU at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in Oslo, May 2019, represented an important stakeholder engagement event, drawing experts, tool and app Developers, as natural and social scientist, ethicists. The workshop resulted in a report and a recommendation statement, and was refered to by the UNESCO's World Commission on Ethics of Science and Technology as part of its work on Ethical Challenges of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2020, recognising that similarities between nuclear accidents and the Coronavirus pandemic, the SHAMISEN recommendations were adapted to management and survellence of COVID-19.

SHAMISEN - Nuclear Emergency Situations - Improvement of Medical And Health Surveillance - is a EU project under the OPERRA platform, involving 18 partner institutions. Nuclear emergencies have resulted in large numbers of persons being exposed to ionising radiation and have caused major upheavals in the lives of populations affected by fallout, both directly (emergency workers, evacuees, persons living in contaminated areas) and indirectly (persons living in less contaminated regions). Many suffered consequences that were not directly related to the biological effects of radiation, but rather induced by the presence of radioactive contamination, remediation measures, and uncertainties about radiation levels and health effects. While survelliance strategies can meet societies' needs for accurate information on doses and health effects and provide a follow-up system that allows affected population to feel well-monitored for radiation and its possible effects, such programmes also raise ethical issues and challenges. These include concerns about low participation, and worries that survellience might enhance stress and psycological pressure. Despite the concerns, there are no well-established, comprehensive strategies for preparedness and health surveillance relating to radiation accidents. With this in mind, SHAMISEN will build upon the experience and feedback from Chernobyl, Fukushima and other emergency situations to develop recommendations for health surveillance and medical follow-up of affected populations. SHAMISEN represents the first consolidated effort to incorporate the broad WHO definition of health into recommendations for health surveillance of populations exposed to radiation, considering health not only in terms of absence of disease, but as a full state of social and psychological well-being. NMBU is a central partner in the project, participating in all three work packages (WPs) and leading one WP and one cross-cutting action on ethics. In 2017, the EU CONCERT programme approved a continuation of the Shamisen project - Shamisen-Sings, in order to explore in more depth the use of personal dosimeters following a nuclear accident. This is an area

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EU-STRA-Strålevern