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Determining the sample size required for a community radon survey.
Jing Chen1, Bliss L Tracy, Jan M Zielinski
1Radiation Protection Bureau, Health Canada, Ottawa, Canada. jing_chen@hc-sc.gc.ca
Health Physics
|March 12, 2008
Summary
Small community health surveys with a few hundred households can adequately represent indoor radon distribution. Analysis of Winnipeg data confirms that even small sample sizes are effective for radon assessment.
Area of Science:
- Environmental health
- Epidemiology
- Public health
Background:
- Indoor radon (Rn) exposure is a significant environmental health risk.
- Community health surveys frequently incorporate radon measurements.
- Typically, these surveys sample a limited number of households (a few hundred).
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if small sample sizes in community health surveys can accurately represent indoor radon distribution.
- To assess the adequacy of limited household sampling for radon level assessment in a large community.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of radon measurement data from the Winnipeg case-control study.
- Examination of randomly sampled subsets of varying sizes from the study data.
Main Results:
- A sample size ranging from one to several hundred households proved sufficient for survey purposes.
- The study demonstrated that limited sampling can effectively represent community-wide radon distribution.
Conclusions:
- Small-scale community health surveys are viable for assessing indoor radon levels.
- Effective radon distribution representation is achievable with sample sizes of a few hundred households.
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