Improving occupational safety and health in the maritime industry

There are over 817,000 shipments of hazardous materials into the US every day, totaling over 2.1 billion tons entering this county annually. Approximately 24% of these hazardous materials enter the US through a waterway, putting maritime personnel at increased risk for exposure, injury, or even death. In 2010, Nova Southeastern University's Institute for Disaster and Emergency Preparedness (NSU-IDEP) received a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to provide safety training to maritime workers in concert with law enforcement, shipping and cruise industry workers, and port/dock workers. Project SEAMIST provides an interprofessional training which allows for participants to actively exchange vital information related to response protocols and role clarification, as well as actively collaborative in tabletop exercises and maritime-specific simulations that are delivered on an iPad (equipped with a user response framework that impacts how the scenario unfolds). Since 2010, SEAMIST has trained over 900 individuals who work in high-risk environments. Individuals completing the training are contacted 6-9 months post-training to assess the following outcome measures: content specific knowledge on environmental risks, recognition of hazardous materials safety issues in the workplace, and the likelihood of workers addressing safety-related concerns to supervisors in the workplace. Preliminary findings indicated that as a result of SEAMIST training, they were better able to recognize hazardous materials, felt an increased level of comfort notifying supervisors of environmental safety concerns, and would encourage others workers to participate in SEAMIST training in an effort to prevent or mitigate injury. Updated findings will be reported.