- 3.1: Health and Housing
- 3.2: Building, Maintenance and Renovation
- 3.3: Home Hazards
- 3.4: Integrated Pest Management
- 3.5: Training
- 3.5: Research
- 3.6: Program Links
Our mission:
To reduce the impact of asthma across New England, through collaborations of health, housing, education, and environmental organizations with particular focus on the contribution of schools, homes, and communities to the disease and with attention to its disproportionate impact on populations at greatest risk.
Gases
Carbon MonoxideCarbon monoxide (CO) gas poisoning is another serious and preventable home hazard that kills over 500 people in the U.S. each year and causes many more injuries. Like Radon, it is a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas. Unlike radon, CO is a byproduct of combustion. If combustion sources are not properly installed, used, vented or maintained properly, dangerous levels of CO can build up in indoor environments.
Preventions Tips for Chemicals and Carbon MonoxideCarbon Monoxide Source Diagram
Portable Generator Hazards
See Advocacy actions below.
Radon
Radon is a naturally occuring radioactive gas that can be present in your indoor air and in your well water. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and causes approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths annually. It is very important to understand that the current action level of 4pc/L is an action level established in the 1980s based on best available to mitigate the gas in homes. It is not a health-based standard. In fact, the majority of lung cancer deaths tracked in this country are based on an average indoor radon level of 1.3pCi/L in indoor.
General recommendations are that you test your house every two years or after a major renovation. You should also test your well water periodically. State's have Radon Potential Maps that give a general picture of about radon test level, but each site can be different.
Radon can be mitigated with a subslab depressurization system or with other techniques. New homes can be build with radon resistant new construction.
Visit your state's website or contact your specific state program to learn about testing recommendations, do-it-yourself test kit information, qualified testers, radon potential maps, test data interpretation, qualified mitigation contractors, and other available resources.
Resources
The National Safety Council operates the National Radon Hotline (800-SOS-RADON) provides a basic information packet on radon, what and how to test for it. The packet also contains a coupon for a low-cost radon test kit.
Radon Publications (EPA- for consumers, home-buyers, professionals)
Radon in countertops (EPA)
Advocacy
January in National Radon Action Month. Contact your state radon program in advance to get public information materials to distribute. The EPA also has extensive Public Service Media Campaign Materials for distribution all year round.Public Service Announcements for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Prevention
On October 12, 2011 ARC and close to 50 co-signers submitted testimony requesting that the Institute of Medicine examine and address the non-clinical best practice components of comprehensive asthma management as part of Community Based
Non-Clinical Prevention Policies and Wellness Strategies.
Over 50 organizations and individuals joined ARC and Health Resources in Action in expressing to New England U.S. Senator4s our extreme concern about the proposed complete elimination of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Prevention Program by the Senate Appropriations Committee in the proposed FY12 spending bill for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.