VT Data - Radon Tests by Town

<p>Data on aggregated radon test results in residential properties from January 1994 to December 2025 within each Vermont municipality. Radon data can inform public health outreach, educate stakeholders and the public, and encourage testing and mitigation. View this data in the Department of Health's&nbsp;<a target='_blank' href='https://www.healthvermont.gov/environment/tracking/radon' rel='nofollow ugc noopener noreferrer'>radon risk map</a>.</p><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that is estimated to kill 50 Vermonters a year due to lung cancer. Radon can only be detected by testing and buildings with elevated radon levels (≥4 pCi/L (picocuries per Liter)) are found throughout the state. The average level of radon in Vermont homes is 2.4 pCi/L compared with the national average of 1.3 pCi/L. The EPA recommends that homes testing at or above 4 pCi/L be fixed, but as there is no known safe level of radon, the EPA suggests that homes testing between 2-4 pCi/L should also be fixed.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>This data set contains the Environmental Health Radon program’s radon in-air long term test data from 1994-2025, and the Vermont Department of Health Laboratory’s radon in-air short, medium, and long-term test data for 2020-2025. Data have been geocoded and aggregated to the town level to display the number and percent of residences tested by town and the number and percent of residences tested that exceed 4 pCi/L by town.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><i>Data Source</i></div><div>Source data for these maps comes from the highest radon test result ever found at a residence (many residences test more than once). Results are provided by the Radon Program long term test data (1994-2025) and the Vermont Department of Health Laboratory, short, medium, and long term test data (2020-2025). Radon results are aggregated by town based on whether the result was elevated (≥4.0 pCi/L) or not elevated (&lt;4.0 pCi/L).</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><i>Data Limitations</i></div><div>Prison, institutional residence, and nursing home E911 locations are not included in the aggregation of residences by town or geological area. For areas of low population density or low number of tests, data extremes carry more weight and can distort analytic results. Therefore, in the Rates of Radon Testing by Town, data for towns with fewer than 7 tested residences are not displayed; and in Elevated Radon Results, data for towns with fewer than 20 tested residences are not displayed.</div><div><br /><i>Methodology</i></div><div>Record level radon in indoor air test results were extracted from the VDH-EH Radon database by Radon Program staff and from the LIMS system at the VDHL by laboratory staff. The Tracking analyst used SAS version 9.4 and ArcGIS Pro version 2.4.1 to process the data. Geocoded data from the Tracking program were used for the Radon Risk Maps. GIS work to populate the final maps was done collaboratively with partners from the Agency of Digital Services using ArcGIS Pro version 2.4.1.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The residential data are from the VT Data – E911 Site Locations (address points) where the following were selected from the SITETYPE variable: mobile home, multi-family dwelling, other residential, single-family dwelling, residential farm, seasonal home, commercial with residence, condominium, and camp. The residential data in these maps is aggregated by town and geological area to provide the denominator for calculations.</div>