Abstract
1. Background: Fishers face many occupational hazards that include a high risk of fatal and nonfatal injuries and a variety of adverse health effects. Our purpose is to provide an overview of potential countermeasures for the control of hazards that threaten the health and safety of Gulf of Mexico (GoM) fish harvesters. 2. Method: Search terms were used to identify relevant literature; two previous reviews regarding injuries and health risk factors also inform this review. 3. Results: Countermeasures against these hazards include winch guards, lifting devices, job redesign, non-slip decks and vessel stability controls as well as using personal flotation devices, wearing gloves and high-friction footwear, increasing sleep time and using vessel motion to assist lifting. Knowledge about secondary prevention (such as rescue, first aid and making mayday calls) is also important. Learning through experience is a crucial factor that incorporates other fishers’ experiences with innovations. Fatigue and lack of sleep contribute to vessel disasters and injury-related errors. 4. Conclusions: The prevention of injuries and diseases among GoM fishers depends on a combination of focusing on work-processes, instilling a broader safety culture, engineering controls, identifying and sharing fisher innovations, promoting fall overboard prevention and protection and providing culture-based incentives, training and narrative outreach.
Highlights
This review is the third in a series of descriptive literature reviews and it addresses the prevention of a range of potential injuries and adverse health effects among US Gulf of Mexico (GoM) fish harvesters
The purpose of this review is to identify and describepotential potentialcountermeasures countermeasures control hazards that threaten the occupational health and safety of fish harvesters of hazards that threaten the occupational health and safety of US Gulf of Mexico (GoM) fish based on anbased overview literature.ofLiterature from outside the GoM
Search terms reflected occupational occupational safety and health in the fishery sector that included in combination; safety and health in the fishery sector that included in combination; safety, injuries, safety, injuries, health, fishing, aquaculture, engineering, drowning, Gulf of Mexico and several health, fishing, aquaculture, engineering, drowning, Gulf of Mexico and several specific terms such specific terms such as ocular hazards and solar radiation
Summary
This review is the third in a series of descriptive literature reviews and it addresses the prevention of a range of potential injuries and adverse health effects among US Gulf of Mexico (GoM) fish harvesters. The first review described injury risk factors among fish harvesters that included falls overboard (FOB), slippery and inherently unstable work platforms, working alone, not wearing personal flotation devices (PFDs), vessel casualties, lack of response time to crises, lack of vessel repair and maintenance, harsh weather, gear and line contact including winch entanglements, fatigue, lack of a safety culture and onshore hazards, including boarding and debarking the vessel. It addressed fatigue as a risk factor for human error regarding vessel disasters and injuries [1]. Our purpose is to provide an overview of potential countermeasures for the control of hazards that threaten the health and safety of Gulf of Mexico (GoM) fish harvesters
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