{"id":862335,"date":"2026-08-18T09:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862335\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T09:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:10:13","slug":"flight-crews-face-greater-cancer-risk-from-radiation-than-nuclear-scientists-study-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/862335\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight crews face greater cancer risk from radiation than nuclear scientists, study shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flight attendants and pilots<\/a> face the highest risk of death from radiation<\/a>-related cancer<\/a>, even higher than nuclear technologists<\/a>, a new analysis of over 500 occupations reveals.<\/p>\n

Aircrew members face the largest annual dose of cancer-inducing radiation compared to any other workforce in the US, mainly due to their exposure to cosmic radiation<\/a> at high altitudes, according to the research published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.<\/p>\n

Researchers from Harvard Medical School<\/a> call for occupational radiation protections for aircrew members that align with their exposure levels.<\/p>\n

While previous research has hinted that members of the profession are more likely to be diagnosed with some types of cancers<\/a> than the general population, there have been limited studies on whether this translates to higher death rates.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A view of interior of the pilot cockpit and flight deck of a Boeing 777-9 jetliner (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In the study, scientists assessed US death certificates from 2020 to 2024, which were only recently linked to the occupation<\/a> of the deceased.<\/p>\n

Overall, researchers analysed data from nearly 13 million deceased across 503 occupations, including 14,000 pilots and 7,000 flight attendants.<\/p>\n

The analysis accounted for several factors other than occupation that may affect mortality, including age at death, sex, race, ethnicity, educational attainment, and marital status.<\/p>\n

Some of the radiation-related cancers analysed in the study included breast cancer, nervous system cancers, leukaemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, prostate and skin cancers.<\/p>\n

Scientists found that pilots and flight attendants had statistically significantly higher rates of death from breast, central nervous system, prostate cancers, and melanoma.<\/p>\n

Pilots also had a higher leukaemia death rate, the study found.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An airliner climbs after takeoff as seen through an aircraft window at Florence Airport in Florence (Hans Lucas\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Nearly seven per cent of deaths among flight attendants and pilots were from radiation-related cancers, higher than for any of the other professions, including nuclear technologists, who are routinely exposed to radiation, researchers say.<\/p>\n

On average, aircrew in the US face an estimated 3 to 6 millisieverts per year of cosmic radiation.<\/p>\n

This is much above the estimated 0.4 millisieverts received annually by an average air traveller taking 10 cross-country round-trip flights per year, scientists say.<\/p>\n

Citing a main limitation of the study, researchers say there is a likelihood of misclassification of occupation on death certificates and that there is a lack of information on each person’s degree of exposure.<\/p>\n

However, they say the findings confirm there is an association between cumulative in-flight cosmic radiation exposure and a range of radiation-related cancers.<\/p>\n

“Flight attendants and pilots had the highest and second-highest proportion of radiation-related cancer mortality, among 503 occupations, a pattern not observed for non\u2013radiation-related cancers or ground-based aviation workers,” the study concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flight attendants and pilots face the highest risk of death from radiation-related cancer, even higher than nuclear technologists,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[299961,49,48,7714,43897,299959,33910,142748,84,299960,53929],"class_list":["post-862335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-aircrew-members","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cancer","tag-cosmic-radiation","tag-death-certificates","tag-flight-attendants","tag-harvard-medical-school","tag-health","tag-occupational-radiation","tag-thyroid-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}