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Cited by 70Sleep and Work-Related FatigueOccupational Health and Safety in WorkplacesOccupational Health and Performance

Estimating the health consequences of flight attendant work: comparing flight attendant health to the general population in a cross-sectional study

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McNeely, Eileen, Mordukhovich, Irina, Tideman, Samuel, Gale, Sara, Coull, Brent·2018·BMC Public Health
DOI 10.1186/s12889-018-5221-3PMC PMC5865289
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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Flight attendants are an understudied occupational group, despite undergoing a wide and unique range of adverse job-related exposures. In our study, we aimed to characterize the health profile of cabin crew relative to the U.S. general population. METHODS: In 2014-2015, we surveyed participants of the Harvard Flight Attendant Health Study. We compared the prevalence of their health conditions to a contemporaneous cohort in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2013-2014) using age-weighted standardized prevalence ratios (SPRs). We also analyzed associations between job tenure and selected health outcomes, using logistic regression and adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: Compared to the NHANES population (n = 2729), flight attendants (n = 5366) had a higher prevalence of female reproductive cancers (SPR = 1.66, 95% CI: 1.18-2.33), cancers at all sites (SPR = 2.15, 95% CI: 1.73-2.67 among females), as well as sleep disorders, fatigue, and depression, with SPRs ranging between 1.98 and 5.57 depending on gender and the specific condition examined. In contrast, we observed a decreased prevalence of cardiac and respiratory outcomes among flight crew relative to NHANES. Health conditions that increased with longer job tenure were sleep disorders, anxiety/depression, alcohol abuse, any cancer, peripheral artery disease, sinusitis, foot surgery, infertility, and several perinatal outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: We observed higher rates of specific adverse health outcomes in U.S. flight attendants compared to the general population, as well as associations between longer tenure and health conditions, which should be interpreted in light of recall bias and a cross-sectional design. Future longitudinal studies should evaluate specific exposure-disease associations among flight crew.

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  • Generalizing depression by combining all types of depression results in a link between jet lag/social jet lag and depression.

    “However, in common with shift work, generalizing depression (i.e., combining all types of depression) results in a link between jet lag/social jet lag and depression75–79.”

    From Circadian rhythm disruption and mental health (2020) · cites this paper as [79]

    The Results report anxiety/depression by job tenure, and the Discussion links sleep disorders that may involve circadian disruption to adverse mental health outcomes. Neither section addresses jet lag or social jet lag as an exposure, or tests whether combining types of depression produces a link; searches for those terms found no such passage. Page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.72)

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Authors
McNeely, E., Mordukhovich, I., Tideman, S., Gale, S., & Coull, B.
Affiliations
Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
Mordukhovich, Irina
ORCID
Venue
BMC Public Health
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2018-03-23
Volume
18
Issue
1
Pages
346-346
ISSN
1471-2458 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s12889-018-5221-3
PMC
PMC5865289
OpenAlex
W2790647592
Cited by
70
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 4
FWCI
7.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • BMC Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
FAMRI (CIA 150083)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Safety in Workplaces
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Occupational Health and Performance
Keywords
flight attendants, occupational health, cancer prevalence, female reproductive cancers, sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, job tenure, alcohol abuse, infertility, perinatal outcomes, peripheral arterial disease, sinusitis
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Aerospace Medicine, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depression, Fatigue, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neoplasms, Nutrition Surveys, Occupational Diseases, United States, Cohort Studies, Prevalence, Young Adult

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