'You can't manage an exposure you've decided not to measure,' says expert citing FAA limitations
HR professionals concerned with the employment of workers who are frequently high in the sky should consider making some changes to make the space safer for their workers, according to a recent report.
That’s because flight attendants and pilots face significantly higher odds of dying from radiation-linked cancers than the general working population, according to the study that was published in the JAMA Internal Medicine and led by Dr. Vishal Patel of Harvard Medical School.
The report analyzed more than 12 million death certificates to examine mortality tied to radiation-related cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the skin, breast, thyroid, prostate and central nervous system.
Among more than 500 occupations studied, flight attendants recorded the highest proportion of deaths from radiation-related cancers, with pilots ranking second. Flight attendants had roughly 50% higher odds of dying from such cancers than the general working population, while pilots faced about 36% higher odds, the research found, as was reported by The Associated Press (AP).
In absolute terms, radiation-related cancers accounted for approximately 6.9% of flight attendant deaths and 6.7% of pilot deaths, compared with 5% among the general working population, according to the report.
Neither group showed elevated death rates from cancers unrelated to radiation exposure, a pattern that authors of an accompanying commentary said points to workplace exposure rather than lifestyle factors as the likely cause.
Cancer has become the single greatest unmanaged cost risk facing employers, according to a previous report.
Expert reaction and regulatory gaps
In a commentary accompanying the study cited by AP, Australian radiation health researchers Catherine Olsen and Ken Karipidis wrote that scheduling realities in the industry undercut the common assumption that flight crews' skin cancer risk stems from sunny layovers.
"Tighter scheduling, reduced layover times, and the unglamorous reality of back-to-back sectors have largely eliminated the long, sun-drenched stopovers of popular imagination," they wrote, pointing instead to cockpit exposure as the more likely driver, as was reported by AP.
The study's authors noted that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration acknowledges aircrew exposure to ionizing radiation but does not set federal dose limits or require monitoring. "You can't manage an exposure you've decided not to measure," Patel said in an email, according to the AP report.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents 55,000 flight attendants, said the findings confirm long-standing union concerns.
"The risk is known, but crew are not educated or informed. And, no one is taking responsibility," she said, according to the AP report.
Olsen and Karipidis recommended annual skin examinations for aircrew on high-altitude routes and earlier or more frequent mammograms for women in these roles, along with heightened clinical suspicion of cancer among physicians treating pilots and flight attendants.
