Happy National Radon Action Month!
Though we at EAIS work with Iowa school districts throughout the year on radon testing and education, National Radon Action Month (January) is an opportunity for us to step up our outreach to the broader public.
A naturally occurring radioactive gas, radon is odorless, tasteless, and invisible—and it’s the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. The only way to know it has accumulated in a building above the EPA’s “action level” of 4 picocuries per liter of air (pCi/L) is to test for it. Have you tested your home? Has your school district tested its buildings?
One of our primary tasks at EAIS is to train and support Iowa school districts as they test their buildings for radon. We save them money and time, just as we help them to comply with Iowa’s Gail Orcutt School Radon Safety Act.
A few radon facts:
- 1 in 5 U.S. schools has at least one classroom at or above 4 pCi/L
- Iowa has the largest percentage of homes (71.6%) at or above 4 pCi/L
- EAIS is working with 91 Iowa schools in the 2025-26 radon testing season
- To date, EAIS has helped over 130 Iowa schools test for radon
- This year, EAIS member schools will have deployed over 8,000 radon test kits to keep Iowa students and school staff safe from radon
While protecting students and school staff by helping with school testing is important to us as an organization, we’d like to take this National Radon Action Month to encourage everyone to test their homes for radon. It’s inexpensive, it’s easy, and it saves lives! (Find test kits here.)
To learn more about radon, follow along with our #NationalRadonActionMonth posts on Facebook or visit the 5-part blog series that we posted this time in 2025:
Part 1: What is Radon?
Part 2: Health Effects of Radon
Part 3: How Radon Gets Indoors
Part 4: Keeping Radon Out of Buildings
Part 5: Acceptable Level of Radon