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Occupational Medicine Advance Access originally published online on June 27, 2006
Occupational Medicine 2006 56(6):393-397; doi:10.1093/occmed/kql038
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Working conditions in international seafaring

Olaf C. Jensen1, Jens F. L. Sørensen1, Michelle Thomas2, M. Luisa Canals3, Nebojsa Nikolic4 and Yunping Hu5

1 Research Unit of Maritime Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Østergade 81-83, DK-6700 Esbjerg, Denmark
2 Seafarers International Research Centre, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
3 Instituto Social de la Marina, Sociedad Española de Medicina Marítima, Tarragona, Spain
4 Croatian Institute of Occupational Health, University of Rijeka, Verdieva 8, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia
5 Department of Occupational Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Background Seafaring is a global profession and seafarers have their second home on board and live there for several months at a time.

Aim To assess self-rated health status and the main characteristics of seafarers' working conditions.

Methods Questionnaire study concerning the most recent tour of duty.

Results A total of 6461 seafarers in 11 countries responded. In general, the seafarers' self-rated health was good, but it declined significantly with age. Seafarers from South-East Asian countries spent longer time periods at sea, and had lower numbers of officers and older seafarers than found among seafarers from western countries. Most seafarers worked every day of the week, and on average for 67–70 h a week during periods of 2.5–8.5 months at sea.

Conclusions Seafarers' self-rated health was generally good but varied significantly by country. Working conditions also differed by country but did not reflect working conditions in general. Further studies are necessary to describe more closely the influence of work schedules on the health and social life of seafarers.

Keywords      Occupational; seafarer; self-rated health; working condition

Correspondence to: Olaf C. Jensen, Research Unit of Maritime Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Østergade 81-83, DK-6700 Esbjerg, Denmark. Tel: +45 97 18 35 64; fax: +45 79 18 22 94; e-mail: OCJ{at}FMM.SDU.dk


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