Flight attendants are contracting several types of cancer — including breast cancer and skin cancers — at elevated rates, compared with members of the general U.S. population, a team of Harvard University medical researchers says.1
The elevated cancer rates have occurred “despite low smoking and obesity levels indicative of positive health behaviors,” said the report, published online in the Environmental Health journal in late June.
The findings were based on a survey conducted in 2014 and 2015 of participants in the Harvard Flight Attendant Health Study (FAHS), which began in 2007 as an ongoing study to collect data on the effects of occupational exposures on the health of flight attendants.2
A 2014–2015 survey questioned 5,366 flight attendants, and compared the results with those of 2,729 people of similar socioeconomic status who participated in a separate 2013–2014 study — the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
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