if you live in a house with a basement
the chances are you've had a radon test
but what do the numbers mean and just
how safe or dangerous is it if they're
below or above the recommended exposure
level radon is a naturally occurring
radioactive gas it's one of those
substances that it's pretty much
impossible to avoid as it's constantly
being produced by other materials in the
Earth's crust and because it's
radioactive
it has the potential to cause lung
cancer if you inhale it at high levels
for long enough for most of us this
isn't worth worrying about too much as
we can't avoid breathing small amounts
of the gas but if you're living in an
area where there are high levels of
radon it can be an issue unfortunately
that doesn't seem to be an exposure
level where radon doesn't increase the
risk of cancer and because of this
radiation protection specialists
recommend levels and homes are kept as
low as you can reasonably get them but
what does this mean if you find yourself
living somewhere with high radon levels
in the u.s. the Environmental Protection
Agency recommends you take action to
reduce radon levels if they're above 4
picoCuries per liter
the World Health Organization is a
little bit more conservative here and
suggests you do something about it if
the levels are above 2.7 picoCuries per
liter the good news though is that for
most people it's not too hard to get
indoor concentrations below the EPA
action level but if you are stuck with
high radiation levels how do you know
what the additional risk is to get a
handle on this we need to look at the
chances of being killed by this
invisible gas each year in the u.s.
around a hundred and fifty five thousand
people a year die from lung cancer and
of these something like twenty one
thousand deaths are associated with
radon many of these they were also
connected with smoking separating out of
the non-smokers around two thousand nine
hundred people year died
radon related lung cancer this is a
serious number of deaths but because of
the number of people living in the u.s.
the actual risk of dying from radon
exposure in any given year is not that
high
on average something like 9,000 people
out of every million in the u.s. die
each year 500 people out of every
million die from lung cancer and 70
people out of every million die because
they've been exposed to radon for a
number of years but when you only
consider people who don't smoke only 10
people out of every million die from
radon exposure another way of looking at
this is to ask what the chances are that
when you die radon was the cause and
here it turns out that when you pop your
clogs there's a roundabout a want to in
a thousand chance that radon will be to
blame it's somewhat comforting to know
that if you're inhaling radon the
chances are that something else will
kill you first
but this doesn't answer the question of
how much safer you'll be
if you reduce your radon exposure here
the science is a little unclear but
research suggests that there's around
about a 4% increase in your chances of
getting cancer from inhaling radon for
every one picoCuries per liter increase
in your average exposure this is over a
lifetime of exposure though a few days
or weeks inhaling high levels of radon
isn't that risky
it's the day-in day-out exposure over
tens of years that's important
using this estimate of risk versus
exposure it turns out that if the
average exposure level for radon was
increased by two picoCuries per liter
across the United States we'd expect
something like five additional radon
related deaths per million people each
year likewise if we reduced the average
exposure level by two picoCuries per
liter
that'd be five fewer radon related
deaths per million people each year on
average in other words small increases
and decreases in exposure do make
something of a difference and this is
why it's important to keep your radon
exposure as low as you can possibly get
it but if you're just over the
recommended levels it's not something to
panic about and if you below the
recommended levels but can't afford to
go lower still it's probably not worth
worrying over that said it's always
worth taking radon seriously and taking
action to keep your exposures low if you
can for more information on radon safety
do check out the links in the blurb
below and as always stay safe
you