Radiation Public Health Emergencies, Community Resilience, and the Role of Nuclear Medicine Technologists Assumptions for public health

emergency preparedness planning involving the detonation of an impro-vised nuclear device in a large metro-politan area include casualties in the hundreds of thousands, total infrastruc-ture damage within a radius of 0.8–4.8 km (0.5–3 mi), and radioactive materials contaminating thousands of square kilo-meters (1). It is apparent that responding to an improvised nuclear device detona-tion would require an unprecedented na-tional effort. Hundreds of thousands of people would require (and many others would likely desire) monitoring for ex-ternal and internal contamination wit