Study: Flying often could be bad for your health

A new study emphasizes the need for more regulations and safety measures to protect crew and passengers

by: NICOLE KARLIS

From a fatality standpoint, flying is safer than ever: Airplane crashes have decreased in the last few decades. Still, from a public health standpoint, flying may not be that great for your long-term health.

A new study suggests that flight crews face other life-threatening dangers on the job aside from the extremely unlikely chance of a crash. According to a study published in Environmental Health, flight attendants have elevated rates of several cancers — including breast cancer, melanoma, and non-melanoma skin cancers.

“Our findings of higher rates of several cancers among flight attendants is striking given the low rates of overweight and smoking in our study population, which highlights the question of what can be done to minimize the adverse exposures and cancers common among cabin crew,” said Irina Mordukhovich, a research fellow at Harvard Chan School and the corresponding author of the paper, in a press release about the study.

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