BOSTON (WOWO) — Pilots and flight attendants may face higher mortality rates from certain types of cancer compared with workers in other occupations, according to a new Harvard study examining nearly 13 million U.S. death certificates.

The research, published Aug. 17 in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that airline pilots and flight attendants had the highest proportion of deaths associated with radiation-related cancers among more than 500 occupations examined.

Researchers analyzed records from the National Vital Statistics System covering deaths between 2020 and 2024. The database included nearly 13 million death certificates, including approximately 14,000 involving pilots and 7,000 involving flight attendants.

The study focused on cancers that can be associated with radiation exposure, including breast cancer, multiple myeloma, leukemia, lymphoma, cancers of the central nervous system, thyroid cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers.

Lung cancer was excluded from the analysis to reduce the possibility that smoking and other factors associated with lung cancer would complicate the findings.

Among pilots and flight attendants, researchers found statistically significant increases in mortality associated with several cancers.

Both groups had higher mortality rates from breast cancer, central nervous system cancers, prostate cancer and melanoma. Pilots also had a significantly higher mortality rate associated with leukemia.

Overall, radiation-related cancers accounted for 6.9% of deaths among flight attendants and 6.7% of deaths among pilots, according to the study. Those were the highest percentages recorded among the occupations included in the analysis.

Anupam B. Jena, M.D., Ph.D., a Harvard researcher and author of the study, told Fox News Digital that people who work in aviation are exposed to a form of radiation that comes from outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

“As you get high up in the atmosphere, you’re exposed to ionizing radiation from the sun. It’s called cosmic radiation,” Jena said.

Commercial aircraft cruise at altitudes where passengers and crew receive more exposure to cosmic radiation than people on the ground.

According to information cited from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, airline workers receive an estimated 3 to 6 millisieverts of cosmic radiation each year.

By comparison, someone taking 10 round-trip cross-country flights receives about 0.4 millisieverts of cosmic radiation.

That means airline workers can receive roughly eight to 15 times the annual cosmic radiation exposure associated with those 10 cross-country round trips.

Jena said the potential risk is believed to accumulate over time.

“It is thought that this would be a cumulative risk, so the more time that you’re exposed to that cosmic radiation, the greater the increase in risk that you might experience,” he said.

The researchers said the findings are not evidence that cosmic radiation directly caused the cancers or deaths.

The study was observational, meaning it identified an association between occupation and cancer mortality but could not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

Researchers also did not have individual radiation-exposure records for the workers whose deaths were included in the analysis.

That prevented them from determining whether people with greater occupational exposure had greater cancer risks.

Other factors associated with working as a pilot or flight attendant could also contribute to the results.

Jena said the study’s findings did not indicate that airline workers necessarily face a higher risk of cancer overall.

For cancers that were not considered radiation-related, mortality rates among pilots and flight attendants were comparable with those seen in other occupations.

“It’s not just lifestyle factors or factors about these individuals that are making them more likely to develop cancer at large,” Jena said.

The findings could nevertheless lead to questions about whether pilots and flight attendants should receive different cancer screening recommendations.

Jena said more frequent or earlier screening could be considered for