Question:

For this requirement, identify an existing or potential injury or illness problem within a particular aviation/aerospace population or work environment. The parameters are eight to twelve pages of text, adherence to proper grammar and the current APA style guide, and citation of a minimum of five reputable scholarly and/or scientific sources in addition to the course text. Wiki sources are not permitted. Research should demonstrate critical thinking and application and your decisions/rationale must be justified/supported with evidence. Case study should include the following:

(Note: Part 1, 2 -> 1page Part 3, 4, 5 ->6page Part 6 -> 1 page)

1. Abstract – The abstract is a descriptive, but brief summary of your case study. Keep it simple and avoid unnecessary detail. An effective abstract highlights the main points of the case study.
2. Introduction – introduction must provide the reader with the focus and intent of the case study. The introduction should clearly state the context of the report, the problem/ issues you are studying/researching, the factors involved (e.g. stakeholders, timelines, underlying issues) that are considered, recommendations, and support for your recommendations.
3. Methodology – Your methodology defines the process you use to retrieve data and collect information. Methods could include procedures, materials, participant, interviews, survey, observations, publication research, and other forms of research. If applicable, include materials, procedures, and participants.
4. Literature Review – A literature review is a collection of all of the scholarly writings about your research topic. The literature review is the area of the report where you will discuss the connection between this collection or network of scholarly writings and your research topic.
5. Findings/Discussion of Findings – In this section, clearly state the results of the research and discuss the relationship between your research findings and the application of the workplace or population studies. This is not a just a summary of your results, but rather a well-structured synthesized comprehensive discussion linking the literature to your results to prove the validity of your results and make judgements based on the evidence.
6. Conclusions/Recommendations – In this section, provide a detailed explanation of recommendations. Here you are providing a proposed solution to the identified problem/issue. Discuss how the recommendation can be carried out and the benefits of the recommendation. Close with a concrete discussion summarizing the important components of the report.

Required content components for the Case Study

Identify hazards in a specified population or workplace:

1. Identify at least one existing or potential injury or illness hazard within a particular population or work environment.
2. The population or workplace you select should be associated with the aerospace/aviation industry. You may opt to research populations or workplaces associated with your current or past position, an aerospace/aviation industry in which you are familiar, or with which you have an interest in researching to greater depth.
3. Specify the injury/illness, problem, or potential problem within your selected population or workplace. Topic examples:
   • Ergonomic hazards for baggage handlers, flight attendants, or medevac nurses
   • Hazardous materials or bloodborne pathogens exposure for aircraft accident investigators and airport rescue fire fighters (ARFF)
   • Radiation exposure to commercial pilots
   • Stress disorders in air traffic management
   • Hazardous materials exposure to aircraft refuelers
   • Fatigue in aircraft maintenance shift workers
   • Struck-by hazards on airport aprons
   • Thermal hazards for ARFF, or military flight line personnel

Scope & Magnitude:

1. Address the scope and magnitude of the problem by researching scholarly literature, federal or national statistics, and industry resources. Is this problem locally, nationally, and/or globally systemic?
2. Provide specifics associated with mortality, morbidity, epidemiology of the problem, social consequences, economic consequences, direct and indirect costs associated with accidents, etc.

Hazard & Exposure:

1. Based upon the scholarly literature, occupational safety and health guidelines and resources, and literature from the text, thoroughly describe the hazards and exposures that are responsible for the injury/illness problem or the hazards and exposures that create a potential for injury/illness.
2. Detail how they are harmful or injury producing? If you are addressing a health problem, is the exposure chronic, acute, or both? Are there exposure limits?
3. Detail causal and contributory factors, and relate these factors to accident causation theories and models as portrayed in the research literature or within the course text.

Risk Management:

1. Demonstrate the significance of the hazard by using hazard analysis methods and tools, as discussed in the scholarly literature and within the text, to determine the severity and likelihood of injury/illness.
2. What controls are currently in place to prevent injury/illness?
3. Do these controls conform to the hierarchy of controls?
4. Based on the scholarly literature, how effective are these controls? With regard to controls and injury/illness prevention, are there existing standards or regulations?
5. Illustrate the significance of proactive vice reactive measures.
6. Prioritize risks and establish control protocols.

Answer:

Introduction

            The report is based on the risks that are involved in the aviation sector. The risks are faced by the people working in the particular sector especially the pilots and the crew members. The researcher has discussed about the potential hazard of radiation exposure for the workers of the aviation sector. The research will provide a detailed overview of the hazard by a qualitative process.

Methodology

Qualitative Research

            Qualitative Research is the type of research that is involved in the use of unreliable and unstructured information sources and information, collection of different methods and careful observations (Hammer et al. 2014). It also includes the conduction of the research interviews, performing surveys and collecting information from some documents.  Basically it is that kind of research that can be said to be a theoretical form of research involving a detailed analysis of the necessary documents. The readers will be well aware of the origin of the research, the date of occurrence, the topic of the research and the collection of the research methods. The following research has been completed by using qualitative research. Some of the steps in this particular kind of research include;

1. Deciding the research topic
2. Preparation of the research
3. Preparation of the research Questionnaire and giving special attention to it
4. Conducting the literature review of the research
5. Evaluating the need for such a research whether it is needed or not
6. Identifying the sample size
7. Preparing the methodology of the research or the methods or procedures on how the research is completed
8. Analysis of the information

Sampling refers to the collection of data from a selected group of participants on whom an interview is conducted. The opinion of these selected few is taken into consideration while preparing the research. The researcher has selected a sample size of 60 individuals from different organizations consisting mainly of employees and managers.

The companies involved in the production of the aircrafts and the government as well as the authorities is taking up a number of steps to control the operational risks of the crewmembers. Operators make preparations for providing information and education which is based on the dangers of exposure to radiation for the air crew. The air crew includes the flight attendants, pilots and any other person that are employed by the aircraft to perform any duties mentioned by the aircraft. The female crew members have a separate level of danger as because they are much more sensible to radiation. However air couriers and other passengers who travel by air regularly are excluded from this directive. Assessments of individuals’ exposure to radiation can be assessed using the dose for the routes calculated through a technologically advanced computer program which also includes the staff roster information. The different information that are to be included are the date of departure, location of departure, the time of departure, altitude, ascent and many other such similar factors  There are many such computer programs, the latest version being CARI-6M.

Literature Review

            The review of the literature has been done in this part of this report. The report has been produced on the basis of the different reports and surveys that were considered as the part of the report.

The crewmembers of the airlines have inexplicit tasks. The airlines have the responsibility to maintain the safety of the aircraft as well as the passengers. The management has to deal with both the normal as well as some errant passengers (Hammer et al. 2014). Many unseen charged particles are entering the aircraft as they are present in the atmosphere of the earth. These particular particles are harmful and exposure to such particles is a serious cause of concern for the people and the crewmembers.

The high level of speed and energy is not a surprise that the UV rays can easily pierce through the flesh and can act as a serious threat to the health of the individuals (Huff, Patel & Simonsen, 2017). Their damage to tissues and DNA has been linked to cancer and reproductive problems, for example.

The best news is that the cosmic rays does not pose huge risk to humans. That’s because earth’s atmosphere and a magnetic field that further forms a mighty shield against these cosmic radiation. But the shield is penetrable, and some particles leak through this shield..

The Impacts of Space Weather on Aviation – There is a possible cause of concern for the passengers of airlines during a typical flight time. It is quite natural for a pilot to be exposed to radiation exposure equivalent to two x rays and on the whole year the pilot has been exposed to the radiation exposure of nuclear plant. This may cause cancer or cataract to the pilot which endangers the life of the passengers flying in the flight (Hammer et al. 2014).

People who remain in the ground are also exposed to radiation of some kind or the other. The cosmic rays that enter the earth due to holes in the ozone layer are very much dangerous for the persons as such an exposure involves much risk and increases the chance of cancer (Huff, Patel & Simonsen, 2017). While flying in a flight the amount of radiation increases at a high level. As mentioned earlier the altitude plays a vital role to the amount of exposure of the people to the radiation.

NASA is working on a experimental tool to determine the exposure which it says will help to ensure a safeguard for the passengers of the flight.

The windshields of the airplanes though have much strong glasses are vulnerable as because UV rays enters the cockpit and endangers the life of the pilots (Hwang et al. 2015).

The daily flight journey for the pilots is more or less equal to clear exposure to some tanning beds. The airplanes pass through high altitudes and though some amount of radiation is blocked by the windshields a majority part of the UV radiation enters the cockpit which makes the life of the pilots vulnerable. Such type of serious exposure endangers the life of the pilots as they may develop skin cancer and other serious forms of cancer. Some of the researchers have taken different scientific measurements of a plane flying at different altitudes. The research showed that the windshield blocked the maximum UV-B radiation but it failed to stop UV-A radiation.

“Pilots flying for 56.6 minutes at 30,000 feet receive the same amount of UV-A that causes cancer effective radiation as that from a 20-minute tanning bed session,” the author explains in the paper.

Discussion of Findings

Hazard Exposure and Risk Management

Cosmic radiation exposures on aircraft include:

• galactic cosmic radiation
• events of solar particle

Are there any known health effects from cosmic ionizing radiation?

• WHO or the World Health Organization as well as the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) describes that the ionizing effect of radiation is the main cause of cancer in human beings. The following type of radiation can also cause serious reproductive issues in Humans. Scientists are still conducting research on whether ionizing Radiation is the main cause for the different health issues that has been discussed earlier.
• The studies conducted by the researchers have focused mostly on the age groups that are believed to be exposed to much higher radiation.
• The crewmembers especially the pilots are prone to the hazards
• Appropriate controls are still not in place as the only effective method to deal with such a problem is to increase the number of pilots and rotate their duties accordingly.
• Companies like Boeing and Airbus are working on to improve the quality of the glass used in the Airplanes to reduce the chances of emission.
• The government along with the industrial authorities is working under a joint venture to reduce the risk of potential exposure to radiation and adequate funds, human resources, technical expertise is being provided by the government.

What is not known?

It is totally unknown about the cause of the health problems that may occur from radiation exposure. Experts believe that some typical cancer diseases, reproductive health issues like defects from birth and miscarriage are the cause of excessive radiation exposure (Tobiska et al. 2013).If someone is exposed to radiation and possess health problems it cannot be assessed whether the following has been caused by bad work conditions or any other problems .

• The permissible levels of cosmic radiation are unknown to everyone.

How much cosmic radiation are crewmembers exposed to?

• The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements reports that members of the aircrew are exposed to the largest amount of radiation which is much higher than the permissible average (Hwang et al. 2015).
• The Fan Cari Program estimates the cosmic radiation of a particular flight time.

What do guidelines or regulations say about cosmic radiation exposure levels in aircrew?

There are no such official limits of dose for the aircrew of different flights except for some national and international guidelines.

• The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) believes that aircrew to be open to cosmic radiation from different factors must recommend a limit of 1 mSv throughout pregnancy. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements has a 0.5 mSv recommended monthly radiation limit during pregnancy.
• The airlines companies that operate in Europe assess the aircrew exposure to radiation. The European union recommends 6 msV/year exposure the highest limit of exposure to the people.
• Some of the crewmembers are exposed to much higher levels of cosmic radiation and thus have high chances of risks..

Conclusions

            The researcher in this particular report has been able to depict all the different elements and risks that are involved in aviation operations. The special focus of the research is on the risk of aviation crewmembers from radiation. The researcher has discussed all the specific varieties of the risks in the literary part of the research and has discussed the following. Overall the research will be helpful for the future researchers to carry on their further research.

Recommendations

The researcher has highlighted some recommendations to reduce the risks of radiation contamination for the crew members of the different airlines company. Some of them are;

• The Collected information should be used to validate, confirm and make an update on the present amount of radiation exposure for the people working in the airlines
• The authorities must work in tandem with the management of the different airlines and assess the amount of radiation exposure that the crew of the airlines has endured.
• It is the duty of the authorities to persuade the airlines body to protect the crew members by laws that helps to protect them from excessive radiation.
• The crew members of different Airlines Companies must avoid regular radiological tests as they are vulnerable to radiation exposure The crew members must avoid confrontations with the authorities and rather convince them to stop such regular radiological screenings.
• The management of the Airlines must be aware of their duty of caring towards their employees. The medical certificates of the employees must be kept in the database of the company that will help them to manage their employees and take care of their health and other benefits..

References

Hammer, G. P., Auvinen, A., De Stavola, B. L., Grajewski, B., Gundestrup, M., Haldorsen, T., … & Pukkala, E. (2014). Mortality from cancer and other causes in commercial airline crews: a joint analysis of cohorts from 10 countries. Occup Environ Med, 71(5), 313-322.

Huff, J., Patel, Z., & Simonsen, L. (2017). NASA Space Radiation Protection Strategies-Risk Assessment and Permissible Exposure Limits.

Hwang, J., Kim, K. C., Dokgo, K., Choi, E., & Kim, H. P. (2015). Heliocentric potential (HCP) prediction model for nowscast of aviation radiation dose. Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences, 32(1), 39-44.

Knipp, D. J. (2017). Essential science for understanding risks from radiation for airline passengers and crews. Space Weather, 15(4), 549-552.

Mertens, C. J. (2016). Overview of the Radiation Dosimetry Experiment (RaD‐X) flight mission. Space Weather, 14(11), 921-934.

Sanada, Y., Sugita, T., Nishizawa, Y., Kondo, A., & Torii, T. (2014). The aerial radiation monitoring in Japan after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Progress in Nuclear Science and Technology, 4, 76-80.

Sanlorenzo, M., Vujic, I., Posch, C., Cleaver, J. E., Quaglino, P., & Ortiz-Urda, S. (2015). The risk of melanoma in pilots and cabin crew: UV measurements in flying airplanes. JAMA dermatology, 151(4), 450-452.

Sanlorenzo, M., Wehner, M. R., Linos, E., Kornak, J., Kainz, W., Posch, C., … & McGrath, J. T. (2015). The risk of melanoma in airline pilots and cabin crew: a meta-analysis. JAMA dermatology, 151(1), 51-58.

Shantha, E., Lewis, C., & Nghiem, P. (2015). Why Do Airline Pilots and Flight Crews Have an Increased Incidence of Melanoma?. JAMA oncology, 1(6), 829-830.

Tobiska, W. K., Atwell, W., Beck, P., Benton, E., Copeland, K., Dyer, C., … & Hong, S. (2015). Advances in atmospheric radiation measurements and modeling needed to improve air safety. Space Weather, 13(4), 202-210.

Tobiska, W. K., Gersey, B., Wilkins, R., Mertens, C., Atwell, W., & Bailey, J. (2014). US Government shutdown degrades aviation radiation monitoring during solar radiation storm. Space Weather, 12(1), 41-45.

Tobiska, W., Knipp, D. J., Burke, W. J., Bouwer, D., Bailey, J. J., Hagan, M. P., … & Atwell, W. (2013, December). Operational specification and forecasting advances for Dst, LEO thermospheric densities, and aviation radiation dose and dose rate. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts.