Airline pilots and flight attendants may face a greater risk of dying from certain radiation-related cancers than workers in other professions, according to new research published in\u00a0JAMA Internal Medicine\u00a0that examined millions of death records across the United States. The findings add to a growing body of evidence linking long-term exposure to cosmic radiation at high altitudes with increased health risks among airline crews.<\/p>\n
Researchers analyzed\u00a0U.S. death certificate data from 2020 through 2024, reviewing records covering nearly 13 million people across more than 500 occupations. The study included approximately 14,000 pilots and 7,000 flight attendants, allowing investigators to compare cancer-related deaths among aircrew with those in other lines of work.<\/p>\n
Scientists focused on cancers that previous research has associated with radiation exposure, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma, leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, central nervous system cancers and multiple myeloma. Lung cancer was excluded from the analysis to reduce the potential influence of smoking-related factors that could affect the results.<\/p>\n
The study\u00a0found that flight attendants and pilots ranked among the occupations with the highest proportions of deaths linked to radiation-related cancers. Researchers reported elevated mortality rates for several cancers commonly associated with radiation exposure, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma and cancers affecting the central nervous system. Pilots also showed higher rates of leukemia-related deaths than many other workers.<\/p>\n
Experts say the unique workplace environment of commercial aviation helps explain the findings. Airliners typically cruise above 30,000 feet, where the Earth’s atmosphere provides less protection from high-energy particles originating from space. Those particles, known as cosmic radiation, expose flight crews to higher levels of ionizing radiation than most other occupational groups in the United States, Time reported. Source: JAMA Internal Medicine;\u00a0TIME reported.<\/p>\n
Ionizing radiation has long been recognized as a potential cancer risk because it can damage cells and DNA. Previous research established that pilots and flight attendants receive greater annual radiation exposure than typical workers, but whether those exposures translated into higher cancer mortality rates had remained an open question. The new study sought to address that uncertainty using a much larger national dataset than earlier investigations.<\/p>\n
To account for differences unrelated to occupation, researchers adjusted their analysis for factors including age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status and educational attainment. They also compared aircrew members with ground-based aviation workers, helping isolate the potential role of occupational exposure at flight altitude. Source: Harvard Medical School;<\/p>\n
The findings are likely to renew discussion about occupational protections for airline crews. Researchers said aircrew members receive some of the largest annual doses of ionizing radiation among American workers, yet there are currently no broad federal requirements for monitoring radiation exposure among U.S. commercial flight crews comparable to standards in some other industries.<\/p>\n
Health experts stressed that the results should not alarm occasional travelers. The study focused on pilots and flight attendants who spend years accumulating exposure through repeated flights at high altitude. Researchers noted that passengers, including many frequent fliers, do not experience the same sustained occupational exposure levels as airline crew members.<\/p>\n
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