Indoor 222Rn concentrations in a probability sample of 43,000 houses across 30 states

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has assisted 30 of the 48 conterminous states in completing statistically designed surveys of indoor 222Rn over the past 4 y. In all states, the lowest livable level of 43,054 randomly selected houses was tested using charcoal canisters exposed for 48 h. The sampled population included owner-occupied ground-level houses having listed telephone numbers. Summary statistics along with the percentage of houses exceeding various concentration levels are given by state and over all states for houses with basements, for houses without basements, and for all houses. As expected, 222Rn concentration varies widely from one state to another and, in every state, basement houses exhibit higher concentrations than nonbasement houses. The lognormal distribution is shown to be a good approximation to the distribution of screening measurements over the 30-state area. There is, however, some evidence that the lognormal distribution underestimates, by a narrow margin, the upper tail of the observed distribution of basement measurements.