Being aware of negative health effects of radon exposure, many countries aim for the reduction of the radon exposure of their population. The Czech radon programme was commenced >20 y ago. Since then experts have gathered a lot of knowledge, necessary legislation has been enacted, tens of thousands of inhabitants have been offered free measurement and subsidy for the mitigation. Despite the effort, the effectiveness of the radon programme seems to be poor. Newly built houses still exhibit elevated radon concentrations and the number of houses mitigated is very low. Is it possible to enhance the effectivity of radon programme while keeping it on a voluntary basis? One possible way is to employ health marketing that draws together traditional marketing theories and science-based strategies to prevention. The potential of using marketing principles in communication and delivery of radon information will be discussed.
Risk communication efforts to mitigate the second cause of lung cancer worldwide (after tobacco smoking)the radioactive gas radon in buildingsare often ineffective. Therefore, new European legal requirements bind member states to prepare communication strategies to ' … increase public awareness and inform local decision makers, employers and employees of the risks of radon … ' (Council directive 2013/59/EURATOM, ANNEX XVIII/(10)). This manifesto is written to support states to prepare an effective and efficient communication strategy and to avoid the main pitfalls in radon communication. It is based on the discussions that took place at a Workshop on Radon Risk Communication, organized by the German Federal Office of Radiation Protection (BfS) and hosted by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies IASS in Potsdam, Germany from 8 to 10 of October 2019. The authors present a strategic view on the concrete measures that may be taken by authorities, experts and scientists to communicate the risk of radon to human health and to promote radon protection actions more effectively.
Due to the large number of subsidies for energy-saving reconstructions granted, and expecting a strong influence of reconstruction on the radon level in building, the long-term measurements of radon concentration are offered free of charge to kindergartens in the Czech Republic. Classrooms and playrooms where the radon levels exceeded the reference value for kindergartens, which is 400 Bq m(-3), are monitored continuously for at least a week to obtain the average activity concentration of radon when children are present. Some of the kindergartens were previously measured in the 1990s. These earlier measurements have provided an opportunity to compare the results. This paper presents some lessons learned from radon diagnosis carried out in particular cases and an analysis of the influence of reconstruction work on the radon level in the buildings.
A comparison of Czech indoor radon data, soil gas radon data and gamma dose rate was performed on the data sets of 92,276 indoor radon measurements in existing dwellings (National Radiation Protection Institute - NRPI), database of 9500 test sites of soil gas radon measurements (Czech Geological Survey - CGS) georeferenced to levels of gamma dose rate map. Three methods were used for the study of soil gas Rn-indoor Rn relationship: (1) based on the vectorised point soil gas and indoor data related to vectorised areas of gammadose rate, (2) vectorised soil gas-indoor data based on vectorised geological units and (3) soil gas and indoor data related to grid squares 10 x 10 km2. The first and second methods seem to express the closer correlation compared with the third one, however the correlation using the third method is influenced by the representativeness of data value in the square of 100 km2 area. On the other hand, the third method can be used for the overview coverage of the continental areas with lack of input information.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.