GRAND FORKS — There’s a lot happening in aerospace medicine, mental health in particular, said Robert Kraus.
Kraus, dean of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota, said support for mental health in aviation is becoming more widespread.
“What’s interesting is, you see the same people as you talk about mental health in aviation,” he said. “You end up knowing each other and working together and people are serving on each other’s committees and talking about these things. … It’s been really great to see the amount of support that people are getting for it.”
The focus on mental health has reached the federal level. The
, introduced by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, aims to modernize mental health care in aviation. If passed, it would require the Federal Aviation Administration to modernize its mental health guidance regulations, annually review the Special Issuance Medical Certification process and allocate $15 million annually to the Office of Aerospace Medicine and $1.5 million annually for a public information campaign to reduce stigma around mental health care in aviation. It also encourages pilots and air traffic controllers to seek mental health care when they need it and to reduce the stigma associated with mental health and the potential impact on a pilot’s career.
In April, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee unanimously approved the act, moving it to the full Senate for consideration.
“Our pilots, air traffic controllers and aviation professionals need to maintain their mental health in order to do their jobs and keep the traveling public safe,” Hoeven said in a press release about the act’s approval. “The Mental Health in Aviation Act will address mental health challenges in the aviation industry, promote early intervention, provide additional resources to the FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine and support the well-being of aviation professionals and the overall safety of our skies. We appreciate the support of the Commerce Committee in advancing our legislation to the full Senate, where we will continue our efforts to secure passage of the legislation.”
Duckworth added, “Our aviation system depends on the wellbeing of our pilots and air traffic controllers, who operate under an immense amount of stress — their careers should never be threatened because they dared to seek the mental health care they need. … It’s the least we can do to show current and future pilots and air traffic controllers that we are invested in them and committed to dismantling the dangerous culture of silence surrounding mental health in the aviation industry.”
The act builds on efforts UND has taken to support mental health in aviation following the suicide of aviation student John Hauser in fall 2021. Since then, UND has established the John A. Hauser Mental Health in Aviation Initiative Fund with Hauser’s family, started an annual Aviation Mental Health Symposium and established the North Dakota Center for Aerospace Medicine, which recently signed a
$5 million aeromedical research agreement
with the FAA in September.
Kraus said, outside of congressional leadership like Hoeven’s, others have been pushing for more support as well. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is standing up a hotline for general aviation pilots. Systems set up by airlines and unions inspired UND’s own UpLift Peer Support program, a peer support program for aviation students.
With the excitement of building mental health support, he said there’s a desire to tell people’s stories to encourage others to get help.
“If they’re willing to say, ‘look, I had some problems, I had this issue and I was grounded, and I went through the system and got back to flying again,’” he said. The idea is to “tell the success stories that are out there, because the whole goal is to encourage people to seek out help early, (rather) than to let it fester.”
Other initiatives are underway as well. Several members of the aerospace school recently attended an Aerospace Medicine Association conference not just to discuss mental health, but also
. The university’s Department of Aerospace Physiology offers a motion sickness desensitization course, adopted from Air Force air sickness training from the 1990s.
UND also is lining up speakers for its next Space Operations Symposium. One guest it would like to have on the list is the chief medical officer from Blue Origin. Kraus said UND is interested in the question of how someone is medically qualified to go to space and how to treat a medical situation in space, if one arises.
Otto is the University of North Dakota reporter for the Grand Forks Herald.