Radon Mitigation Efficiency (RAME), a research project funded by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), is aimed at testing the long-term effectiveness of the radon mitigation measures that have been used in residential buildings. National control of the project lies with the Radon Competence Center at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), in collaboration with national and regional expert partners including the two other Swiss radon competence centers (located in Fribourg and at Muttenz, near Basel), the Federal Office of Public Health, and ECONS SA environmental engineering, based in Bioggio, Ticino.

A number of radon-measuring programs have been carried out across Switzerland over the past few decades to monitor concentrations of radon gas in residential buildings. In a number of cases, measures have been taken to reduce the levels recorded inside buildings back down below the baseline.

Interventions of this kind have not always been documented by property owners, and therefore they have not been systematically recorded in Switzerland’s national radon database. One of the aims of the present study is to collate all the available information on the radon mitigation measures that have been taken in Switzerland in a single database. This requires an estimate to be made of the number of buildings across the country where mitigation has been carried out, before assessing the longer-term effectiveness of existing systems. This will make it possible to draw up guidelines for the public use of the various mitigation techniques.

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