

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health are running another study on Cabin Crew/Flight Attendant health and would appreciate your input. This is a worldwide study.
Please share the link below with your colleagues.
‘Dear Flight Attendant or former Flight Attendant,
We would like your help with the Flight Attendant Health Study, conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Researchers launched the landmark study in 2007 and today we are continuing to explore how flight attendant health and well-being changes over time. Our current research findings can be found on our website at: www.FAhealth.org:
ABOUT THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT HEALTH STUDY
Studies have shown a plethora of health effects from flying—reduced respiratory and cardiovascular health, increased breast cancer, melanoma, non-melanoma skin cancer, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma risk, and higher rates of musculoskeletal conditions, ALS, anxiety, depression, and fatigue disorders.
The research we conduct as part of the Flight Attendant Health Study in particular shows this population of workers to have higher rates of health conditions including chronic bronchitis, skin and reproductive cancers, fatigue disorders, depression, and anxiety.
We are continuing to study the mechanisms underlying these associations. Here are several ways we are studying this understudied group:
- Identifying how past exposure to second hand smoke in the cabin affects health today.
- Studying the effects of flight attendants’ psychological/social environments on mental health and musculoskeletal health.
- Understanding the impact of the cabin environment on health and performance in flight. We developed the Flight Health app to measure information about cardiac, respiratory, and blood oxygen parameters, a range of self-reported health and well-being symptoms, and processing measured by the PVSAT test. Our goal is to understand the pathways through which flight affects health, and is complementary to our research regarding cardiac, respiratory and blood oxygen measures with respect to oxygenation to an equivalent of 7,000 feet in a chamber study of flight exposure conditions.
- Conducting interdisciplinary research in molecular and cellular biology, epidemiology, and environmental health to understand how flight attendants’ combined environmental exposures impact DNA repair capacity.
- Evaluating the health effects of flight attendant uniforms, after thousands of flight attendants reported health complaints such as severe skin rash, respiratory symptoms, fatigue, and thyroid disease, which our work has also observed. Our group has conducted laboratory screenings on these garments and detected the presence of metals, sensitizers, and allergenic dyes. We are currently working to evaluate the synergistic effects of these exposures.
We encourage current and retired flight attendants to sign up to find out how you and your colleagues can participate in this important study, to learn more about our research findings to date and to see how news media are covering the study.
https://www.fahealth.org/about/
Your participation is voluntary. The survey will take about 20-30 minutes to complete and includes questions about your health, work, and quality of life. Feel free to skip any questions that you feel uncomfortable answering or to stop at any time. This will not result in a penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
Your participation will contribute to the understanding of flight attendant health. Additionally, participants who fully complete the survey will be entered in a lottery with a chance to win a $249 Apple Watch (4 watches will be given out total). Our survey is not a diagnostic health screening test; the information that you provide is neither used for a diagnosis nor treatment of health conditions. If you have any health concerns, please consult with your primary physician.
Your responses are protected. We never share contact information or medical details. Your responses are assigned a code during data analysis rather than including your name. All findings are reported in a group without reference to individual identifiers.
The Harvard Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Harvard LMA Quality Improvement Program oversee this study. They reserve the right to review data for compliance with research and confidentiality procedures.
If you have any questions, concerns, complaints, or study related injuries, or would like to be withdrawn from future communication, please contact:
Dr. Tyler VanderWeele
Principal Investigator
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
fahealth@hsph.harvard.edu
This research has been reviewed by a Harvard Longwood Medical Area Institutional Review Board (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). If you wish to speak with someone from the IRB (independent from the research team), please contact the Office of Human Research Administration (OHRA) at 617-432-2157 (or toll-free at 1-866-606-0573) or 90 Smith Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02120 for questions, concerns, or complaints about the research; questions about subjects’ rights; to obtain information; or to offer input.’
To participate please use the link here:
https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dj4WBHJ98qUioIe