In my last blog, I offered the diagnosis that the medical community suffers from cognitive dissonance when it comes to patients and radon communication. To be clear, this cognitive dissonance arises from two facts. First, the medical and public health communities are aggressively advocating against behaviors, such as smoking, that cause lung cancer. Second, the medical community has not taken an aggressive approach to radon counseling, even though radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. In this blog, I would like to explore two of the more important reasons why I believe that this situation exists. In later blogs, I will discuss some ideas about a cognitive dissonance cure.

As a recent medical journal article said, “Counseling around unhealthy or risky behaviors is an important communication skill that should be part of health care visits.” That is why radon professionals believe that doctors should be talking to their patients about the dangers of radon exposure. Yet we know that physician-patient discussions about radon are not routine. In fact, they are rare. In this blog, I want to explore this apparent contradiction, which looks like a case of cognitive dissonance. In later blogs, we will try to explain the reasons for this situation, and also look at what doctors could or should be telling patients about radon. Perhaps most importantly, I hope we can discuss how to work effectively with the medical community and what physicians should be saying about radon.

To set the stage, let’s start with six or seven simple facts.

How can you measure success or fine-tune your efforts to deliver the most radon risk reduction?

In my last blog, I laid out some ideas about how to work with agents, brokers and others to bring radon into the residential real estate transaction in a way that benefits both consumers and agents. I suggested that radon leaders should engage real estate agents and brokers directly, especially through continuing education courses. In this blog, I want to take up the issue of how to measure success – that is, how to figure out if you are making progress and helping achieve real radon risk reduction and how to adjust your efforts if you find that they are not getting the results you would like.

Radon and Residential Real Estate: Working with the Real Estate Community
Dr. Paul Locke is a radon leader who has over 20 years of experience in radon science, policy and law. He is particularly interested in how radon testing and remediation can be made part of residential real estate transactions. Dr. Locke is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

This is Part 3 in a five-part blog on radon and residential real estate. Read previous posts.

What are some effective ways to work with the real estate community?

Radon and Residential Real Estate: Getting to Know the Players
Dr. Paul Locke is a radon leader who has over 20 years of experience in radon science, policy and law. He is particularly interested in how radon testing and remediation can be made part of residential real estate transactions. Dr. Locke is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

This is Part 2 in a five-part blog on radon and residential real estate. Click here for the first post.

To take full advantage of the opportunities for radon testing and remediation that real estate transactions offer, and to learn more about the possible pitfalls of working in these transactions, it’s essential to understand the community of people that make up the world of real estate and learn about what motives them.

Discussing One of the Biggest Levers: Radon and Residential Real Estate
Dr. Paul Locke is a radon leader who has over 20 years of experience in radon science, policy and law. He is particularly interested in how radon testing and remediation can be made part of residential real estate transactions. Dr. Locke is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

This blog is about working with real estate professionals to reduce radon levels in homes. Home purchase and sale transactions often create an opportunity to address radon. That means that real estate professionals – those involved in the transaction who are marketing homes – could be great allies. As radon leaders, we need good partners to help us reach our goals.