RiskAnalysis, zyxwvutsrqponm Vol. zyxwvutsrqpo 11, zyxwvutsr No. I, 1991 Protective Responses to Household Risk A Case Study of Radon Mitigation James K. Doyle,’ Gary H. McClelland,’ William D. Schulze,’ Steven R. Elliott,2 and Glenn W. Russell2 zyxwvuts Received February 20, 1990; revised zyxwvu August 7, I990 zyxwvu This study analyzes the effectiveness of a mass-media radon information and testing campaign conducted in the Washington, zyxwvu D.C. area in the winter of 1988. Although an impressive number of test kits (approximately 100,000) were sold, the ultimate mitigation rates resulting from the campaign were extremely low. Analyses show that low mitigation rates cannot be explained by postulating that people’s responses to radon are insensitive to the level of objective risk. They may instead be due to characteristics of the protective response required to reduce radon risk. Radon may be thought of as one of a family of household risks which have risk response profiles that make them particularly difficult for people to manage and remediate. Traditional information campaigns for such risks are likely to be ineffective; instead, they may require regulatory strategies or programs which provide active guidance and assistance. zyxw ~ ~ KEY WORDS: Radon; radon mitigation; risk communication; information campaigns; self-protective behav- ior. 1. INTRODUCTION The Environmental Protection Agency has esti- mated that between 5000 and 20,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States can be attributed to expo- sure to radon gas in homes and other buildings.(*) Radon has also recently been implicated as a causative factor in other cancers.(2) Although radon may account for more risk than any other environmental pollutant in the United States, efforts to increase public concern about radon, to promote radon testing, and to encourage radon miti- gation have generally yielded disappointing results. This study analyzes the effectiveness of one such effort, an information, awareness, and testing campaign aimed at the general public and conducted in the Washington, D. C. area in the winter of 1988. Department of Psychology and Center for Research on Judgment and Policy, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309. Department of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo- rado 80309. The difficulty in communicating radon risk may partly reflect the fact that radon has many risk charac- teristics which typically lead people to underestimate or to dismiss the risk. Among the risk characteristics which have been suggested to be important for understanding radon risk perception are the following: 1. The objective probability of the risk (between 1 and 5% chance of lung cancer for a lifetime exposure to zyxw 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) of ra- don according to the EPA)(*) is below the level where people understand the risk and respond appr~priately.(~,~) 2. There are no perceptual cues to alert people to the presence of the risk(5) (radon is colorless, odorless, and tasteless). 3. The risk is natural as opposed to technological and there is no “villain” to whom one can easily assign 4. People’s experience with the risk is typically be- nigd4) (they have lived in their homes for many 0272-4332/91/0300-0121$06.50/1 0 1991 Society for Risk Analysis 121