WHO International Radon Project

The project that culminated in the “WHO Handbook on Indoor Radon, 2009”.

Important note – we no longer rely on miner studies

WHO International Radon Project – Highlights

• Over 100 scientists from 30 countries conducted epidemiological, case-control studies on the effects of indoor radon.
• In view of the latest scientific data, WHO proposed a reference level of 100 Bq/m3, or 2.7 pCi/L to minimize health hazards due to indoor radon exposure.

WHO Handbook on Indoor Radon – In Brief

“Epidemiological evidence indicates that indoor radon is responsible for a substantial number of lung cancers in the general population… As a result, the vast majority of radon induced lung cancers are thought to occur following exposure to low and moderate radon concentrations.  UNSCEAR reported recently that there is now a remarkable coherence between the risk estimates developed from epidemiological studies of miners and residential case-control radon studies. While the miner studies provide a strong basis for evaluating risks from radon exposure…the
results of the recent pooled residential studies provide a direct method
of estimating risks to people at home without the need for extrapolation from miner studies.” – World Health Organization, Handbook on Indoor Radon. 2009.

Ever hear a comment from someone who doubts the validity of radon science and the subsequent health risk to the general public because original studies were based on Miners and not humans in a residential environment?  

The studies published in the WHO Handbook On Indoor Radon scientifically prove that radon in [residential] indoor air causes lung cancer.

• Direct evidence of an association between residential radon & lung cancer risk.
• Data is extremely consistent with findings from miner data and animal studies.
• Validated that current risk estimates are not the result of some unknown latent factors or study specific biases.
  • Most notable study: Iowa Radon Lung Cancer Study