Results from Our Pilot Study
Hello everyone,
We hope you are enjoying your summer! We wanted to share some of what we have learned so far from our pilot project as we begin to think about our next steps and continue to work with TNH2H to take action.
First we'd like to thank TEX for sharing a story about our project in their July update. Science writer Kathleen Pierce put together a wonderful piece about our project , including a great infographic that nicely summarizes our work (you can see the infographic below as well).
The finding that most took us by surprise was the frequency of high radon levels in homes. As you can see in the plot above, 12 out of the 15 participating homes had levels above the EPA's recommended action level - that's 80% of the homes we sampled. Only one home met the EPA's recommendation of having radon lower than 2 picocurries per liter of air. Granted we did sample a fairly small geographic area and given that radon originates in the soil, it makes sense that if we find high radon levels in one household it's likely we will find high levels in nearby homes as well. However, the problem is that we seem to have found a radon 'hot spot' within a community that is already at a disadvantage in terms of education and awareness of radon. In 2013, the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment published a report on radon awareness and household testing across Colorado, and using survey data they found that lower income homes, lower education levels, and people of color were less likely to know what radon is or to have tested their homes for it. Additionally, according to aggregated data 40% of homes in Denver County tested above the 'action level'. In contrast, 80% of the homes tested in our study exceeded the action level. This finding supports our assertion that neighborhood-level data may prove more informative and useful for protecting the public’s health and county-wide data may be less representative of specific neighborhoods.
In terms of the perchloroethylene (PERC) results, we found all tested homes to be well below the 'action level' specified by the state for residences. Two homes were above typical background levels, however, this may have been due to a combination of poor ventilation and/or the presence of household products containing PERC, but again these two homes were well below the action level.
As you can read in the TEX story, there was some discrepancy between our low-cost, pilot sampling method and the higher-quality, standard sampling method for PERC. Our first thought was that maybe the pilot method was responding to other compounds (i.e., other volatile organic compounds) present in the homes, and the cross-sensitivity to these other compounds was responsible for the discrepancy. We ran additional tests and conducted additional analyses in an effort to better understand these results and will soon publish this information in more detail on our project page. However, preliminary results indicate that this pilot sampling method may be a useful tool for identifying groups of compounds (as opposed to a single compound); further testing would be necessary to confirm this.
Overall, we were able to accomplish a lot with this project. We obtained samples from 15 homes and collected data that highlights where action is necessary to improve public health in this community, We have already successfully advocated for the addition of radon mitigation to a list of home improvements for which residents with low-incomes might receive no interest loan assistance. The community now has preliminary data on PERC levels in homes, and although the low-cost pilot method for detecting PCE did not work exactly as planned, we learned some interesting things about the types of volatile organic compounds present in the participating homes. While we have exhausted the funding you generously provided for the pilot project, this project is evolving and far from over. We are currently seeking additional funding and support to expand data collection, facilitate organized education and outreach, and identify additional resources to help this community address the high radon levels we now know are present.
One last thank you to all of our wonderful backers, AGU's Thriving Earth Exchange, the CU Engage Graduate Fellowship Program, our project coordinator, support from the Hannigan lab at CU, and, of course, the membership of Taking Neighborhood Health to Heart!
Infographic by Kathleen Pierce:
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