EPIDEMIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION BASED ON ANALYSIS OF MORTALITY AMONG CIVIL PILOTS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Abstract

The paper presents first results of an epidemiological investigation concerned with mortality among Russian civil pilots fulfilled in 2021. Object was a cohort of former pilots selected in the database of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation since 1991. Each one in the cohort had more than 6 000 flight hours and retired on a pension at the age of 35 the earliest. Mortality was analyzed in the timeframe of 2015 to 2019. Since the RFPF does not contain information about cause of death, the mortality rates were calculated without regard for the cause. As of 31.12.2019, out of 18 254 former pilots in the cohort 1381 (7.6 %) were dead and 16 873 (92.4 %) were alive; total number of person-year observations made up 78 453.7. For the period between 2015 and 2019, the age-standardized mortality factor for pilots was 164.8 per 10 000 which is 31.3 % less when compared to the male population in Russia (238.9 per 10 000), p < 0.05. The risk of death for any reason among former pilots was reliably less in comparison to the male population in Russia: odds ratio is equal to 0.68 within the 95 % confidence interval of 0.56–0.83. Comparatively low death risk for pilots is attributed to the effect of healthy employee, more careful professional selection, high level of medical care, and well-being. However, for the majority of flights the uncontrolled risk of tumor dictates the necessity of further prospective investigations of mortality among civil pilots.