Occupational risk factors for endometriosis among flight attendants

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bertke S ; Grajewski, Barbara A. ; Johnson C ; Lawson C ; Tseng C-Y ; Whelan, Elizabeth A.
• Description:
  Objectives: Previous studies suggest that flight attendants could have a higher risk for endometriosis than women in other occupations. Our objectives were to compare the rate of endometriosis among flight attendants to the rate in a comparison group of teachers, and to investigate occupational risk factors for endometriosis among flight attendants. Method: We included 1780 flight attendants and 240 teachers aged 18-45 at enrollment. Endometriosis diagnosis was selfreported via telephone interview, and records of individual flights were retrieved from airlines to obtain work schedules and assess exposures for flight attendants. Cox regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations between exposures and endometriosis, adjusting for body mass index at interview and using age as time scale. Results: Flight attendants were no more likely to report endometriosis than teachers (adjusted OR 1.3, 95% CI 0.7-2.3). Among flight attendants, there were no clear trends between yearly cosmic radiation exposure, hours worked during normal sleeping hours, or ergonomic factors and endometriosis. A greater number of flights per day (adjusted OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.2-3.3 for 3+ versus 1 flights/day, p trend = 0.007) and fewer time zones crossed per flight (adjusted OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.0-3.7 for 0 vs. 2 + time zones/flight, p trend = 0.04) were associated with a higher rate of endometriosis. Conclusions: The rate of endometriosis increased with number of flights and decreased with time zones crossed, which might be surrogates for exposures specific to flying a series of short flights during the workday. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Aircraft Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Urogenital Diseases Urogenital System Women Workplace
• Keywords:
  Flight-personnel Humans Reproductive-system Reproductive-system-disorders Risk-factors Statistical-analysis Work-environment Workers
• ISSN:
  1351-0711
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Illinois ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  71
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20044621
• Citation:
  Occup Environ Med 2014 Jun; 71(Suppl 1):A12-A13
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• NORA Priority Area:
  Transportation, Warehousing and Utilities
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Challenges for Occupational Epidemiology in the 21st Century, EPICOH 2014, June 24-27, 2014, Chicago, Illinois
• Supplement:
  1
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6c95fe3666fea0fb0bf920d75e370754f3fbce67723284af6f3562038e06b151383ccd650b6692cf97dfa4ebb3d2e026a2c3eea3e5b47e47bf7e120552a1c142
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/200287/cdc_200287_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 75.71 KB ]