Radon is a radioactive, invisible gas that can seep into homes from the ground, causing lung cancer. Unlike many private homeowners or landlords, social housing residents often don’t have the ability or means to test the air quality in their building or make repairs to address radon.
The IJB has published an interactive map based on more than 20,000 radon results in social housing units. The data is drawn from government-owned social housing authorities that test for radon and have provided results to reporters. But there are no rules mandating radon testing in social housing units. And most do not test for radon, the IJB found.
Viewers can click on each jurisdiction where radon test results are available, viewing the total number of tests, the proportion that exceed Health Canada’s radon guideline of 200 Bq/m³ and the World Health Organization’s more stringent guideline of 100 Bq/m³.
This database was created in partnership with the University of Toronto’s HIVE Lab which is dedicated to developing open-source tools to improve public health.
The Investigative Journalism Bureau is a non-profit, impact-driven newsroom telling deeply-reported stories in the public interest.
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