# Commercial Fishing Safety Training

> **NIH ALLCDC T03** · ALASKA MARINE SAFETY EDUCATION ASSN · 2020 · $100,966

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT J. DZUGAN
Commercial Fishing Safety Training
This project will increase the train-the-trainer and commercial fishing safety
workshop efforts of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association (AMSEA).
AMSEA's goal is to continue to expand the network of port-based fishing safety
instructors around Alaska and the U.S., as it has for the last 25 years. The goal is
to provide fishermen with credible fishing safety instructors, from the fishing
industry, who know the local area and local fishery risks. The training will also
help them meet training requirements and reduce the number, and rate, of
fatalities.
This project is very relevant to public health in the workplace. Commercial fishing
still suffers from the first or second (depending on the year) occupational fatality
rate of any major occupation in the U.S., despite steady decreases in the last 25
years. Recent federal training requirements will increase the amount of safety
training needed by operators of fishing vessels and assist in lowering fatalities
further. Refresher safety training of fishermen will also be required. Large areas
of the nation still lack training infrastructure to deliver safety training relevant to
the fishing industry and to meet new mandates.
New trainers take a Coast Guard accepted intensive 48-hour Marine Safety
Instructor-Training (MSIT) course that provides practice in marine safety
equipment and procedures, methods of instruction and how to reduce risks in
training and in fisheries. These instructors then co-teach commercial fishermen
with experienced AMSEA Training Coordinators and they are mentored until they
are effective. AMSEA staff provide USCG approved certification plus their time,
training equipment and new teaching resources at no cost to these new
instructors.
Central to these training efforts is the emphasis on performance-based, hands-on
training. Fishermen need to complete an assessment in skills like immersion suit
donning in a timed interval, stating an emergency radio message, righting and
entering a liferaft in the water and other skills which casualty reports have stated
were not performed correctly and resulted in fatalities.
About 50% of this training effort will take place outside Alaska on all coasts of the
U.S. These short one to two day workshops in Emergency Drill Conductor, Cold
Water Survival, Stability/Flooding Control etc. will help fishermen meet new
requirements and provide much needed emergency skills to thousands of
fishermen in scores of far flung ports in the U.S.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9922185
- **Project number:** 5T03OH008631-16
- **Recipient organization:** ALASKA MARINE SAFETY EDUCATION ASSN
- **Principal Investigator:** JERRY DZUGAN
- **Activity code:** T03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $100,966
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-07-01 → 2021-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9922185

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9922185, Commercial Fishing Safety Training (5T03OH008631-16). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9922185. Licensed CC0.

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