Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
The human health impacts
of aviation
Ken Hume and Adrian Watson
I
NTRODUCTION
There are increasing pressures on the environment and human health due to world-
wide growth of the transport industry. The aviation industry poses a unique set of
health issues on a number of groups: passengers, aircrew, airport personnel and com-
munities living around airports. These health impacts are set to increase with the
global increase of aviation that has undergone rapid growth over the last decade and
is predicted to double during the next 15 years. On very rare but tragic occasions the
lives of passengers, aircrew and individuals, who may have no immediate connection
with aviation, are at extreme risk from air accidents and hijacks - as demonstrated at
Lockerbie and, more recently, New York.
There is a full range of health issues associated with aviation, from a 'reduction
in physical and mental well-being', as included in the World Health Organization
(WHO) definition of health, to acute serious medical conditions. For example, jet lag
is a condition where the physical and mental condition of the sufferer is clearly com-
promised but not in a critical medical state, while a passenger with deep vein throm-
bosis (DVT) has a serious medical condition.
The groups of people affected and the situations in which their health is poten-
tially put at risk by aviation are complex and not described by one simple list. Thus,
jet lag can present a considerable physiological challenge after a flight from London
to Sydney, crossing nine time zones, but is hardly an issue from London to Cape
Town, where only one time zone is crossed.
In this chapter we will consider some aspects of the human health impact of avi-
ation, but because of the breadth of the subject will focus on two topics, the aircraft
cabin environment and the local community surrounding airports and, in particu-
lar, air and noise pollution.
