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 improvised nuclear device in a large metropolitan area include casualties in the hundreds of thousands, total infrastructure damage within a radius of 0.8–4.8 km (0.5–3 mi), and radioactive materials contaminating thousands of square kilometers (1). It is apparent that responding to an improvised nuclear device detonation would require an unprecedented national effort. Hundreds of thousands of people would require (and many others would likely desire) monitoring for external and internal contamination with radioactive materials.