The workshop is free of charge.

• You can participate physically or online. You will be asked if you participate physically or online when you sign up. You can change your choice later. We will send an e-mail including a link to the workshop before each meeting starts. The link will be sent to everyone - including those who have signed up as a physical participant.

• We will send you more information about the workshop program by mail as we approach.

Deadline for registration: 20 August 2022  - Sign up here: https://www.conferencemanager.dk/radonsignup/signup

Project Lead: Violeta Hansen, Aarhus University, Denmark, T. +45 2398 1173 / M. viha@ecos.au.dk 

Financed: The Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science, International Network Programme 2021

Project Participants: The University of Calgary (UC), Yukon Lung Association (YLA), Yukon Housing Corporation (YHC), The University of Victoria (UV), Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Nuuk (GEUS, Nuuk)

Additional invited project participants: Greenland Institute of Natural resources (GINR), Asiaq Greenland Survey, Greenland, Ilisimatusarfik University, Greenland's Centre for Health Research (GCHR) at the Institute of Nursing and Health, Narsaq International Research Station (NIRS), students, Yukon University, NRS National Institute of Scientific Research, Québec, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA, National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Laboratory of Observations and Measurements for the Climate and the Environment, Italy, ANSTO, Australia

Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and Gender Equality, Greenland, Ministry of Health, Greenland, Health Canada, Yukon Government, Health and Social Services, Canada, Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, STUK, Finland, Icelandic Radiation Safety Authority (IRSA), Iceland, Government of Saskatchewan, Environmental Protection Branch, Ministry of Environment, Yukon First Nations, the public, stakeholders from the communities and Government of Greenland, as well as the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada.

Collaboration with EU traceradon project and UNSCEAR. 

Project description:

Indoor radon and its decay products are the primary sources of the population's exposure to background ionizing radiation. Radon itself contributes relatively little to the annual effective dose to the lung, while its decay products are one of the leading causes of lung cancer, with higher lung cancer risk for smokers due to radon decay products and cigarette smoking synergistic effects. Literature studies have shown that domestic radon exposure increases the risk for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during childhood. Compared to the European indoor radon map, which includes 800000 indoor radon measurements, limited radon data exists from the Arctic and sub-Arctic. Permafrost thawing due to climate change will increase radon concentrations in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. 

Compared with temperate environments, it is a long cold winter in the Arctic, where most people are more exposed to the indoor climate because they spend more time indoors. When dwellings are heated during the winter (i.e., the stack effect), the negative pressure forces soil air, which contains radon gas, into the building unless the building is completely sealed towards the ground below. In this respect, homes and people living in the Arctic can be at risk. Therefore, the role of a radon survey in the Arctic is essential to evaluate how many homes have "high" concentrations (e.g., > 100 Bq m-3, > 200 Bq m-3, or > 300 Bq m-3) and identify areas that might need mitigations. The radon data also serve as input for estimating the annual exposure of the public. The multidisciplinary project described here combines climate change, radioecology, human risk assessment, geoscience, and social science and takes advantage of the experiences obtained by project partners.  

The overall proposal goal is to identify areas of collaboration between the project participants within the field of radon (e.g., radon surveys), radiation biology, human radiation risk assessment, climate change, and social science, allowing the development of the Northern Radon strategy.