Flight attendants have a tough job . On top of the psychological strain from having to deal with sometruly ill - behaved client , crew extremity face up numerous physiological hazards in the shape of frequentcircadian rhythm disruptions , breathing poor - quality recycled air , and exposure to ionize radiation syndrome from pass so much time in the upper atmosphere .
aesculapian scientists have experience about the likely health risks of this career field for some fourth dimension , yet the consequence from the small smattering of studies focused on the publication have beenfrustratingly contradictory , especiallywhen it comes to cancer .
But now , a new investigation by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health come out to quash past dubiety after regain that a sizable group of air hose crew members had higher - than - normal rates of many cancer type .
“ We report a higher preponderance of every genus Cancer result we examined among cabin crew proportional to the general population , ” the team wrote in the journalEnvironmental Health , “ include breast , uterine , cervical , gastrointestinal , thyroid , melanoma , and non - melanoma skin cancers . ”
Their ongoing inquiry undertaking , called the Harvard Flight Attendant Health Study ( FAHS ) , began collecting ego - reported medical data from 5,366 flight attendants in 2007 . The current study used information from the 2014 to 2015 survey and compared it to wellness outcome from 2,729 control subjects who were couple for socioeconomic position .
Among char crew appendage , the rates of breast ( 3.4 percent of flying work party vs 2.3 pct in the ecumenical population ) , uterine ( 0.15 vs 0.13 ) , cervical ( 1.0 vs 0.70 ) , gastrointestinal ( 0.47 vs 0.27 ) , and thyroid ( 0.67 vs 0.56 ) cancers were only slightly raise compare with controls , yet statistical analyses indicated that this pattern was very unlikely due to random chance .
For male escape attendants , the authors institute high-pitched rates of melanoma ( 1.2 percent of flight of steps crew compared with 0.69 percent in the general population ) and non - melanoma skin cancer ( 3.2 vs 2.9 percent ) .
Additionally , each five - twelvemonth chunk spent in the manufacture was linked to a modestly greater risk of infection of non - melanoma peel cancers in women and all skin cancers in men .
" Our study is among the largest and most comprehensive studies of cancer among cabin crew to date and we profile a wide image of Cancer , ” author Dr Irina Mordukhovich say in astatement . “ This is affect give the low rates of overweight and fume in this occupational group . "
Of course , this field is only able to report coefficient of correlation , not causation , and the authors confess that there were non - superficial dispute in the demographics of the FAHS and command groups that could have skewed the issue . For example , the flight staff participant tended to be older than control subjects and a larger dimension were women .
An investigating using control subject that are also matched for age and sex activity and data point gathered from actual medical record rather than self - reports will succumb more upstanding associations .
