The Minnesota Department of Health has awarded grants totaling $250,000 to seven local health agencies, including one in Pope County, to develop and implement programs that address health hazards frequently found in homes.

The Minnesota Department of Health has awarded grants totaling $250,000 to seven local health agencies, including one in Pope County, to develop and implement programs that address health hazards frequently found in homes; hazards such as lead, radon and other indoor air pollutants, including tobacco smoke and carbon monoxide, fire safety risks and others.

The grants will fund local efforts that are designed to encourage prevention activities, provide guidance and support to individuals exposed to lead, asthma triggers and other unhealthy conditions within their homes. The grantees will be required to:

Complete a strategic planning and needs assessment process.

Pilot home assessments and education methods.

MASON CITY — Keep your home healthy if you want to stay healthy in winter, health officials say.

“Our homes can directly affect how healthy we are as people,”said Erik Gustafson, Healthy Homes coordinator with the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health. “Here in the upper Midwest, we spend a large majority of our time inside the home in the winter.”

Here are a few ways to be safe:

• Have your furnace serviced annually by a professional.
• Have your gas furnace and gas water heater checked at least once a year to make sure they are exhausting correctly to prevent a buildup of carbon monoxide.
• Check your furnace filter monthly to see if it’s getting clogged. If it is, change it.
• If you have a gas furnace, install a working carbon monoxide detector. CO detectors should be located near sleeping areas.
• Install working smoke detectors. Check the batteries monthly.

Karen Claus started RKC Inspections Radon Testing Service 11 years ago and has tested thousands of homes in the Chicago area, measuring radon levels and determining whether the family living there is at risk.

Radon is a colorless, odorless and tasteless radioactive gas and the leading cause of lung cancer in nonsmokers. Testing is the only way to know if there is a risk, states Illinois Emergency Management Agency’s Division of Nuclear Safety (IEMA).

IEMA provides radon testing results for each zip code. Of the 676 homes tested in Kendall County through 2010, 35 percent tested over the level where action is necessary (4.0 pCi/L). Claus explained that this percentage has decreased from the 2006 results which showed 58 percent of tested homes in Kendall County were over the action level. The 2010 report includes homes which installed radon mitigation systems and were tested to ensure the system is working properly.

Since you can't smell, taste, or see radon gas which is present in most homes, how can you make sure your home is safe? The only way to know for sure is to purchase a test kit and measure the level of radon in your home.

Is it really worth testing for this gas, you might be wondering? Absolutely. Radon exposure is actually the second-leading cause of lung cancer behind smoking. Your risk of developing lung cancer due to radon depends on its concentration in the air you breathe and the duration of the exposure. Time between exposure and the onset of cancer is usually many years – all the more reason to test sooner rather than later.

For smokers, the exposure to radon combined with tobacco use can cause a significant increase in their risk of lung cancer.

As Canadians, we all want the cleanest, safest, most secure home environment to live in and raise our families. One way to do this is to monitor our homes for the quality of the air we breathe. Radon gas is not something we hear about every day in Canada; however, radon exposure is a leading cause of lung cancer – second only to smoking.

Radon is a radioactive gas present in the soil and rocks around and beneath your home. Radon gas enters your home through cracks and gaps in floors and walls. It can be an issue in all types of homes: new or old, with finished or unfinished basements, regardless if they're heavily sealed or drafty. While problems can be more concentrated in some areas of Canada, any home can be at risk.

Offers of free HPA radon tests have gone out to thousands more Cornwall residents.

Last month the Health Protection Agency (HPA) and Cornwall Council unveiled a new campaign to reduce exposure to the cancer-causing radioactive gas radon across the county and wrote to residents in the former Caradon district offering a free test.

Now the drive has moved onto the area previously covered by Restormel council.
In the past few years the HPA has measured several homes in this area which were more than 50 times over the point at which it is recommended that householders take action to mitigate the problem.

“Cornwall has long been known as the area of the UK with more homes potentially exposed to high radon than anywhere else,” said Neil McColl, head of radon at the HPA’s Centre for Radiation, Chemicals and Environmental Hazards.

You can't see it or smell it, but it's everywhere. Radon is a naturally occurring gas that comes from the breakdown of Uranium in soil and rocks. Radon becomes a problem when it seeps into homes and gets trapped.

Radon can get into a home through cracks in the floors or walls, construction joints and gaps around pipes.

The American Lung Association has known for a long time the dangers of radon exposure. Pat McKone, the director for mission programs, promotes awareness of this deadly gas.

"The lung health risk for radon is one, and only one, and it's lung cancer," explains McKone.

Similar to smoking, direct exposure to radon does not immediately cause cancer. It is a long process that can take years. But a combination of being a smoker and being exposed to radon greatly increases the risk for developing lung cancer.

University of Nevada Cooperative Extension and the Nevada State Health Division have taken the lead in Nevada to encourage all residents to test their homes for radon.

Although most people associate lung cancer with smoking, the leading cause for nonsmokers is radon. Smokers have a higher risk of radon-induced lung cancer than nonsmokers.

About 21,000 people die each year in the U.S. of lung cancer caused by indoor radon exposure. The radon health risk is highly preventable, yet few people know about the radon risk or have their homes tested for it.

Radon is a radioactive gas. It comes from the natural decay of uranium in soil and enters homes through foundation cracks, openings and some of the porous materials used to construct foundations and floors of homes. It is an odorless, colorless, invisible gas that can reach harmful levels when trapped indoors. The only way to know what the radon levels are inside a home is to measure them.

There is a growing awareness of the number of illnesses that can be caused by environmental risks in the home.

Everybody’s health is at risk from housing-related hazards, but infants, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with chronic medical conditions and disabilities are especially susceptible.

Knowledge of potential hazards in the home is important in the prevention and treatment of the medical conditions they can cause.

Home health hazards include dust, allergens, mold, and pests such as insects and rodents. They also include toxic materials such as lead, asbestos, and chemical pesticides, and poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide and radon. Since some of these hazards are odorless and colorless, they cannot be detected by the human senses alone. That’s why homeowners are encouraged to install detectors in their homes.

The Acting U.S. Surgeon General, Steven K. Galson, M.D., M.P.H., will hold an event on June 9 in Washington, DC, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time, to release his "Call to Action to Promote Healthy Housing." Although the event can no longer accommodate additional in-person attendees, it will be Webcast live on the Surgeon General's website, www.surgeongeneral.gov.