Flight attendants and pilots are at the highest risk of dying from radiation-related cancers—even more than people who work with radioactive materials, a new study suggests. The research, published Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine, used national data from more than 12 million death certificates that included information about occupations, per the AP. The authors looked at death rates from cancers that are tied to radiation exposures, including leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the skin, breast, thyroid, prostate, and central nervous system.
Among more than 500 occupations, flight attendants had the highest percentage of deaths from radiation-related cancers, and pilots were second, the researchers found. For those two occupations, the odds of dying were unusually high for each type of radiation-related cancer. Neither group showed higher-than-normal death rates from cancers that aren't tied to radiation exposure, noted two Australian radiation experts who weren't involved in the research, in an accompanying commentary. That fact "supports the hypothesis that occupational radiation exposure, rather than lifestyle or socioeconomic factors, underlies the observed excess," wrote Catherine Olsen and Ken Karipidis.
The researchers found that flight attendants had about 50% higher odds of dying from a radiation-related cancer than the general working population, and pilots had about 36% higher odds. In terms of absolute risk, about 6.9% of flight attendant deaths were from these cancers—roughly 1 in 14. Among pilots, it was 6.7%. For the general working population, it was 5%, said the study's first author, Dr. Vishal Patel of Harvard Medical School. The authors acknowledged some limitations in their study. They do not know how much exposure each flight attendant and pilot got in the air or from other sources. It's also possible occupations were misclassified on some death certificates.
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