A Feasibility Study to Inform a Multi-Year Comprehensive Health and Safety Initiative for Commercial Fishermen in the Northeastern United States

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RFA-OH-20-002: Commercial Fishing Occupational Safety Research Cooperative Agreement (U01) Project Summary/Abstract The proposed feasibility study will provide scientific evidence to expose and understand critical health and safety issues, identify assets and best practice solutions, and support arguments for a multi-year plan to foster economic resilience, health, and safety of commercial fishermen in the Northeastern United States. The study will contribute new knowledge to public health by synthesizing existing data (e.g., worker health data from the NIOSH Data and Statistics Gateway; Coast Guard; literature review), new information from community asset mapping, interviews, and focus groups on effective strategies and priorities, as well as new cost analyses. In the short term, the study will assess whether a proposed set of initiatives is a feasible means of fostering economic resilience and health and safety fishing industry workers in a particular region, but the approach to the research and findings may translate to policy and practice in other regions and worker populations. Fishing Partnership Support Services (FPSS), a non-profit, will lead the study, using a multi-method approach, engaging internal and external researchers from several disciplines (public/behavioral health, psychology, economics) in collaboration with members of the fishing industry and policy makers. Safety training is a critical component of FPSS' comprehensive, community-based approach to improving the health, safety and economic security of fishing communities in Massachusetts and the mid-Atlantic. Prior community-based research suggests that, while safety trainings are necessary, these trainings will not result in sustainable change unless other critical barriers are addressed. Industry workers will not prioritize their safety and health until they can meet the other basic needs associated with accomplishing their work. Global forces, including low wages, burdensome regulations, inconsistent law enforcement, and climate change, will prevent the sustainability of current and proposed health and safety programming. A holistic approach is necessary for sustainable change. In 2020, Massachusetts fishing leaders drafted a framework for achieving the long term and systemic changes needed to respond to the critical barriers and sustain the advances associated with recent federal investments in their health and safety. Through this study, FPSS will assess the feasibility of translating that vision into action in Massachusetts and other Northeastern states and generate new public health knowledge that can be used in service of designing and implementing a sustainable multi-year project plan.