The flight attendants who spend much of their time in the air are more likely to have cancer than the general population, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health published Monday in the journal Environmental Health.

Compared with the general population, here's how the cancer rates compare for female flight attendants:

  • Breast cancer: 3.4% in flight crew, 2.3% in general population
  • Uterine cancer: 0.15% in flight crew, 0.13% in general population
  • Cervical cancer: 1.0% in flight crew, 0.70% in general population
  • Gastrointestinal cancer: 0.47% in flight crew, 0.27% in general population
  • Thyroid cancer: 0.67% in flight crew, 0.56% in general population

Women who had no children or had three or more children had a higher risk of breast cancer the longer they stayed on the job.

Here's how the cancer rates compared for male flight attendants:

  • Melanoma skin cancer: 1.2% in flight crew, 0.69% in general population
  • Nonmelanoma skin cancer: 3.2% in flight crew, 2.9% in general population

The authors used self-reported data from 5,366 US flight attendants and compared it with data from a matching group of 2,729 men and women with similar economic status who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey collected during the same years.

Full article: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-flight-attendants-have-a-higher-risk-of-cancer-than-the-general-population-2018-6