Development of historical exposure estimates of cosmic radiation and circadian rhythm disruption for cohort studies of Pan Am flight attendants.
BACKGROUND
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is conducting cohort studies of flight crew employed by the former Pan American World Airways company (Pan Am) as part of an effort to examine flight crew workplace exposures and health effects. Flight crew are exposed to elevated levels of cosmic radiation and to disruption of circadian rhythm when flying across multiple time zones. Methods exist to calculate cosmic radiation effective doses on individual flights; however, only work histories which provided an employee's domicile (home base) history rather than a record of every flight flown were available.


RESULTS
We developed a method for estimating individual cumulative domicile-based cosmic radiation effective doses and two metrics for circadian rhythm disruption for each flight attendant: cumulative times zones crossed and cumulative travel time during the standard sleep interval.


CONCLUSIONS
The domicile-exposure matrix developed was used to calculate exposure estimates for a cohort mortality study of former Pan Am flight attendants.
Waters
Martha A
MA
Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH 45226, USA.
Grajewski
Barbara
B
Pinkerton
Lynne E
LE
Hein
Misty J
MJ
Zivkovich
Zachary
Z
D000401:Aircraft / Q000266:history*; D001359:Aviation / Q000266:history; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000528:radiation effects*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003359:Cosmic Radiation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States