Methods are investigated for calculating nuclear heating and dose due to the interaction of nuclear radiation with matter. A theoretical model is developed for calculating neutron fluence-to-kerma factors (kerma = kinetic energy released in materials) from basic nuclear data. No major simplifying assumptions are introduced, and the accuracy of the calculated fluence-to-kerma factors depends only on the availability and accuracy of the basic nuclear data. Based on this theoretical model, a computer program called MACK was written to calculate fluence-to-kerma factors from nuclear data in ENDF format. An algorithm for investigating the validity of the kerma factors by using an integral energy balance was also developed. The validity of the theoretical model and the correctness of the computation of the kerma factors obtained in the present work were verified through the use of this algorithm. Comparison of these kerma-factor results with previous work showed that they provide a considerable improvement in kerma-factor and nuclear-heating calculations. It is also shown that there is currently some inconsistency in preserving the energy between the basic neutron interaction data and the gamma-ray production data. It is suggested that the photon-production matrix be processed simultaneously with the neutron kerma factors to ensure consistency.