The self-reported health of U.S. flight attendants compared to the general population

Download: McNeely_et_al2014_provisional

Environmental Health 2014, 13:13 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-13-13
Eileen McNeely (emcneely@hsph.harvard.edu)
Sara Gale (gale@hsph.harvard.edu)
Ira Tager (ibt@berkeley.edu)
Laurel Kincl (laurel.kincl@oregonstate.edu)
Julie Bradley (juliembradley@gmail.com)
Brent Coull (bcoull@hsph.harvard.edu)
Steve Hecker (shecker@uw.edu)

Background
Few studies have examined the broad health effects of occupational exposures in flight
attendants apart from disease-specific morbidity and mortality studies. We describe the health
status of flight attendants and compare it to the U.S. population. In addition, we explore
whether the prevalence of major health conditions in flight attendants is associated with
length of exposure to the aircraft environment using job tenure as a proxy.

Conclusions
This study found higher rates of specific diseases in flight attendants than the general
population. Longer tenure appears to explain some of the higher disease prevalence.
Conclusions are limited by the cross-sectional design and recall bias. Further study is needed
to determine the source of risk and to elucidate specific exposure-disease relationships over
time.