The well-being of civilian aircrews - Part 1.

Let's take last things first. What I mean is, let's look first at a main outcome measure of the Aircrew Stress Study, and then we'll work back and see what all went into it.

At the very beginning of this tale, I said that the central research question behind this study was: "What effects does job stress have on the health and well-being of people who fly for a living?"

So, let's begin by looking at 'well-being.' There are many kinds of well-being -- physical well-being, emotional well-being, financial well-being, and so on. For our purposes, 'well-being' equates to an individual's subjective 'quality of life.'

The Aircrew Stress Study survey used a scale called the WHO-5 Well-being Index to measure subjective quality of life. A multinational group of scientists working on behalf of the World Health Organization created this measure as part of a larger worldwide research project to study well-being and quality of life. It has been used in dozens of countries and has been translated into many languages. It uses a series of questions to measure positive mood, vitality, and other indicators of overall well-being.

Since the WHO-5 Index has been very widely used and validated, there are reference statistics for it. In other words, experience with the measure has shown that people who score above a certain level are enjoying a positive sense of well-being, and those who score below that level may be at risk for poor physical and/or mental health.

The average scores on the WHO-5 Index for our sample of 1,078 people were well above the cut-off for positive well-being, but nearly 36% of all the people who took the survey scored below the cut-off -- meaning that they are 'at risk' for poor health.

Looking at the whole sample -- pilots and cabin crew combined -- age, gender and education level all seemed to have some effect on well-being scores. Older people tended to score considerably higher than younger people, men tended to score somewhat higher than women, and those who were college graduates tended to score somewhat higher than those who were not.

There was no noticeable difference in well-being scores based on marital status, having children at home, or living situation. By this I mean that those who had a partner scored similarly to those who did not; those who had kids at home scored similarly to those who did not; and those who lived alone scored similarly to those who lived with others.

But one thing caught my eye immediately when I looked at the results for the Who-5 Well-being Index: As a group, the pilots in the sample had a somewhat higher average score than the flight attendants. Not only that, if you looked only at those who scored below the cut-off for positive well-being -- that is, at those whose scores indicated that they were 'at risk' for poor health -- the difference between pilots and cabin crew was even more striking. About 28% of the pilots fell into the 'at risk' group, but a whopping 40% of flight attendants' scores indicated that they were 'at risk' for poor health.

Clearly, something's going on here. We'll see if we can figure it out as we go along.

** Copyright © 2007 by Bobbie Sullivan. All rights reserved. **