Healthcare avoidance and stress risks in the New Zealand population of pilots and air traffic controllers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Aviation at Massey University, Manawatū School of Aviation, New Zealand

Bongers, Herwin2025-07-102025-07-102025https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/73171Master of Aviation thesisThis study was initiated to understand if the population of pilots and ATCOs in New Zealand engage in healthcare avoidance behaviours due to a fear of the impact upon their aviation medical certiﬁcate. For this question, this study has, in part, sought to make a comparison to the Healthcare Avoidance study (HCA) by Hoﬀman et al (2022). However, since this study’s overall objective is to discover to what degree the aviation system in New Zealand is exposed to this behaviour, it is the ﬁrst study which includes ATCOs into the survey population. The reasoning is that because ATCOs are also required to hold an aviation medical certiﬁcate and are also integral to aviation system safety. As an extension to the HCA study outcomes, a question to do with avoidance behaviours directly associated with mental health was included to gain insight speciﬁcally around this highly safety sensitive topic. Since the avoidance of healthcare may be associated with concerns regarding a declining health issue, a study objective was to ﬁnd if the population is exposed to cumulative stressors which may predict poor health outcomes.en© The AuthorHealthcare avoidance and stress risks in the New Zealand population of pilots and air traffic controllers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Aviation at Massey University, Manawatū School of Aviation, New ZealandThesis520104 Industrial and organisational psychology (incl. human factors)