ABSTRACT
The Chornobyl nuclear power plant accident of 1986 was the worst recorded nuclear power plant accident in history. The violent explosion of reactor four and the resulting graphite fire exposed approximately 4,000,000 people to levels of radiation 5 times greater than any fallout from nuclear weapons tests (Goldman, 1997; Shcherbak, 1996). Approximately 200,000 people were
evacuated from areas surrounding Chornobyl (Goldman, 1997). The unprecedented nature of the accident and the sociopolitical changes that occurred since that time have presented methodological challenges for determining the immediate and long-term psychosocial consequences (Bromet, 1995). Although there have been a number of recent studies of the psychological impact on adults (cf. Havenaar & van den Brink, 1997), few studies have focused on children. However, young children were found to have the greatest risk of thyroid cancer (Bard, Verger, & Hubert, 1997) and, as a result, the wellbeing of exposed children remains a major public concern in Ukraine and in other parts of the former Soviet Union.
