WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration should exert its existing regulatory authority over ionizing radiation as an occupational hazard to ensure the health and safety of airplane flight crews, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report finds that in-flight cosmic radiation exposure warrants attention as an occupational hazard, but current approaches to monitoring exposure and communicating with affected workers are inconsistent and insufficient.

From natural radiation exposure during flight, crewmembers on commercial flights receive among the highest occupational exposures to radiation among workers in the United States, but they lack regulatory protections comparable to other radiation-exposed workers. Although the radiation dose received during any individual flight is generally low, evidence indicates the cumulative dose accrued over the course of a career may increase the risk of cancer and other adverse health outcomes, and therefore merits monitoring and tracking. Additionally, the tools for monitoring exposure and educating workers are available, but they are not uniformly used or deployed.

“Radiation exposure is an unavoidable part of a flight crewmember’s job, and we need to do more to ensure that flight crew health and safety are sufficiently prioritized,” said Jonathan Samet, professor of epidemiology and of occupational and environmental health and former dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “We hope our report will be a guide to revising approaches to the problem, strengthen oversight, and empower crewmembers with the information they need to make decisions about their health.”

The report notes that while available evidence from studies of flight crew does not definitively establish associations between occupational radiation exposure and specific health outcomes, there are opportunities to improve understanding of cumulative exposure during a career and the associated risks. Additionally, there is a need for greater understanding and characterization of solar particle events, when higher doses may be received. The report concludes that current scientific knowledge, operational tools, and computational models provide a sufficient foundation to improve occupational radiation management now, while continuing to make progress in strengthening research and exposure assessment over time.

Immediate Actions

Existing regulatory and operation frameworks are limited. The FAA has recognized radiation exposure as an occupational consideration for flight crews since 1990, but monitoring and management practices are neither required nor formalized, in contrast to those used in other occupations. The FAA should begin exerting its regulatory authority over ionizing radiation exposure of flight crewmembers, the report says.

In addition to asserting its regulatory authority, the FAA should build upon its investment in the CARI dose model developed by the FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, and create a user-friendly, web-based application for the model to help crewmembers track their own exposure levels, the report says. It noted that tracking radiation dose at an individual level is an interim step while more comprehensive methods are developed.

Short-Term Actions

In the near term, the report urges the FAA to require U.S. commercial airlines to implement comprehensive radiation safety programs aligned with best practices for occupational radiation protection.

In addition, the FAA should work with appropriate agencies to establish a dose-tracking system for flight crew that would allow airlines and individual employees to monitor radiation exposure. Such a system would also provide the data needed to facilitate epidemiologic research and support assessment of the population health of flight crew. Concurrently, the FAA should work in conjunction with other federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA on sustained, real-world radiation characterization measurement campaigns to provide more data and modeling on radiation exposure under different flight conditions.

Airlines and labor organizations should collaborate on scheduling practices that reduce exposure for workers such as pregnant crewmembers seeking lower-dose routes, the report adds.

Long-Term Actions

To address the longer-term challenges and improve computational models for estimating radiation dose, the FAA and collaborating organizations should systematically evaluate and compare radiation exposure models under realistic operating conditions. The report recommends development of an ensemble modeling approach to do so.

The report also encourages federal agencies, industry stakeholders, and flight crew organizations to build a coordinated long-term research strategy to address occupational radiation exposure and health outcomes.

Undertaken by the Committee on Assessing Radiation Exposure, Health Outcomes, and Mitigation Strategies for Flight Crewmembers, the study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln. 

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