Residual Radiation Risk Disparities Across Sex and Race or Ethnic Groups for Lifetime Never-Smokers on Lunar Missions

Abstract

In the current decade missions to the Earths moon are of scientific and societal interest, however pose the problem of risks of late effects for returning crew persons, most importantly cancer and circulatory diseases. In this paper, we discuss NSCR-2022 model risk estimates for lunar missions for US racial and ethnic groups comparing never-smokers to US averages for each group and sex. We show that differences within groups between men and women are largely reduced for NS compared to the average population. Race and ethnic group dependent cancer and circulatory disease risks are reduced by 10% to 40% for NS with the largest decrease for Whites. Circulatory disease risks are changed by less than 10% for NS and in several cases modestly increased due to increased lifespan for NS. Asian-Pacific Islander (API) and Hispanics NS are at lower risk compared to Whites and Blacks. Differences between groups is narrowed for NS compared to predictions for average populations, however disparities remain especially for Blacks and to a lesser extent Whites compared to API or Hispanic NS groups.