In 2019, a record 4.5 billion passengers travelled by air.1 This fell markedly during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2023, the industry’s measure of overall airline ‘traffic’, revenue passenger kilometres, was back to 94% of the 2019 figures, with predictions that 2024 will see new record passenger numbers (see figure 1).2 This highlights how common air travel is and reinforces the idea that it is highly likely that all doctors will see patients who travel by air. However, passenger fitness-to-fly considerations are not typically covered in undergraduate medical curricula or postgraduate medical specialty training programmes. This was recognised as an area of deficiency in clinical training and support to the general population by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.3 In response, the UK Civil Aviation Authority set up an Aviation Health Unit, which acts as a focal point for aviation health in the UK, providing information for passengers and guidance for health professionals on assessing the fitness of their patients for travel by air.4 These efforts also contributed to the establishment of the specialty of Aviation and Space Medicine, which was approved by the General Medical Ccouncil in 2016.5 Figure 1 Global revenue passenger kilometres, a measure of global air travel activity (billions of kilometres per month). Adapted from IATA2: https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/air-passenger-market-analysis-december-2023/. A key consideration around passenger fitness to fly is the potential interaction of the air travel environment with normal physiology or pre-existing …

中文翻译：

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商业航空旅行期间低压客舱环境对乘客飞行健康的影响


2019 年，乘飞机出行的旅客人数达到创纪录的 45 亿人次。1 在 COVID-19 大流行期间，这一数字显着下降，但到 2023 年，该行业衡量航空公司整体“客流量”的指标（收入旅客公里数）又恢复到 2019 年数据的 94% ，预测 2024 年乘客人数将创下新纪录（见图 1）。2 这突显了航空旅行的普遍性，并强化了这样一种观点：所有医生都极有可能会接诊乘飞机旅行的患者。然而，本科医学课程或研究生医学专业培训课程通常不涵盖乘客飞行健康的考虑因素。上议院科学技术委员会认为这是临床培训和对普通大众支持方面的一个缺陷。 3 作为回应，英国民航局设立了一个航空健康部门，作为航空健康部门的协调中心。英国的航空健康，为乘客提供信息，并为卫生专业人员评估患者是否适合乘飞机旅行提供指导。4这些努力还促进了航空航天医学专业的建立，该专业得到了英国航空航天局的批准。医学委员会 2016.5 图 1 全球收入乘客公里数，衡量全球航空旅行活动的指标（每月数十亿公里）。改编自 IATA2：https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/air-passenger-market-analysis-december-2023/。关于乘客是否适合飞行的一个关键考虑因素是航空旅行环境与正常生理或预先存在的……的潜在相互作用。