Flight attendants and pilots account for a higher share of deaths from radiation-related cancers than workers in any of the other 501 US occupations examined in a new analysis, including people whose jobs involve handling radioactive materials. The study, led by Vishal Patel of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, was published in JAMA Internal Medicine and drew on more than 12.7 million US death certificates from 2020 through 2024 that had been linked to each decedent's usual occupation.
Among all 503 occupations, flight attendants ranked first and pilots second. Radiation-related cancers accounted for 6.9 percent of deaths among flight attendants and 6.7 percent among pilots after adjustment for age at death, sex, race, ethnicity, education, and marital status, a share that exceeded that of nuclear technologists. The pattern held for both sexes, with the highest figures among female pilots (8.1 percent) and female flight attendants (7.8 percent).
