Epidemiological Studies Among Pilots and Cabin Crew

Epidemiological studies of airline crew did not receive much attention until the beginning of this decade. Since 1990, a number of epidemiological studies of aircrews in civil or military aviation have been published. The results of these studies will be summarised and reviewed. The difficulties of epidemiological studies relating to the low exposures experienced by aircrew will be described; they include problems of low statistical power to detect any radiation effect, the availability of a valid comparison population, and the importance of taking into consideration relevant confounder variables. A European project to investigate cancer risk and other causes of mortality of flight personnel in civil aviation in relation to occupational factors is presented. Historical cohort studies are being performed in the participating countries and a joint analysis of the data is anticipated. The results of the pooled analysis are expected in 2001. (author)