- Researchers found that flight attendants had a higher prevalence of cancer than did the general population.
- Especially with nonmelanoma skin cancer, working more time in the air correlated with higher incidence rates.
- The authors used self-reported data from 5,366 US flight attendants and compared it with data from a matching group of 2,729 men and women with similar economic status.
- The paper deduced that the cancer rates were most likely a result of being exposed to occupation-related factors such as cosmic ionizing radiation at flight altitude.
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A new study finds that US flight attendants have a higher risk of cancer than the general population
Researchers have found that flight attendants had a higher prevalence of cancer than the general population and that more working years correlated with higher rates of certain skin cancers. The paper says it's most likely explained by exposure to occupation-related factors.
It's not always sunny to fly on an airplane.
If you've even sat in the wrong spot, you're more likely to get sick. And for the flight attendants who spend much of their time in the air, there may be some health risks as well.
In a study published Monday in the journal Environmental Health, researchers at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that flight attendants were more likely to have cancer than the general population.
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Compared with the general population, here's how the cancer rates compare for female flight attendants:
Women who had no children or had three or more children had a higher risk of breast cancer the longer they stayed on the job.
Here's how the cancer rates compared for male flight attendants:
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The authors used self-reported data from 5,366 US flight attendants and compared it with data from a matching group of 2,729 men and women with similar economic status who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey collected during the same years.
The authors suggested the higher cancer rates among flight attendants came down to factors related to their jobs. Flight attendants are more often exposed to probable carcinogens in the cabin environment including cosmic ionizing radiation at flight altitude. They may also experience circadian-rhythm disruption caused by irregular work schedules and time-zone shifts. Poor cabin air quality and high levels of second-hand tobacco smoke before in-flight smoking bans were implemented may also contribute to cancer risk.
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