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HIGH POINT – Advocates for radon awareness are taking January to make sure their message is heard. Exerts say one out of every 15 homes statewide has elevated levels of radon, a cancer causing carcinogen that can build inside homes.

Dusty Donaldson became an advocate for radon awareness in a very unlikely way.

“I was diagnosed with lung cancer four years ago and I quickly learned that you don't necessarily have to be a smoker to be diagnosed with lung cancer,” Donaldson said.

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer, and this year 21,000 will die from it. The colorless, odorless toxin forms when rocks and soil break down. The gas is diluted in the air and generally not of any harm unless it seeps into your home where it can get to unsafe levels. But where you live determine your risk.

“By the coast it's lower levels,” Donaldson said. “And then as you move more westward across the state, the risk becomes greater, and that's because there's more bedrock as you go westward.”

But that's where she says a radon testing kit can help. The kits run anywhere from $12 to $20.

“And they'll send the kit right to you,” Donaldson said. “The kit itself will come fairly easy to set up and the kit is a self-mailer, you just send it right back to the lab and then the results are either e-mailed to you or sent to you in the mail.”

And she says what it all comes down to is protecting yourself.

“More people will die from radon induced lung cancer then those who will dies from AIDS [in the United States], but you certainly would protect yourself from AIDS, so why not do something to protect yourself from radon?” Donaldson said.

The North Carolina radon program is offering free radon testing kits till the end of January.