Classification of working processes to facilitate occupational hazard coding on industrial trawlers.

BACKGROUND Commercial fishing is an extremely dangerous economic activity. In order to more accurately describe the risks involved, a specific injury coding based on the working process was developed. METHOD Observation on six different types of vessels was conducted and allowed a description and a classification of the principal working processes on all kinds of vessels and a detailed classification for industrial trawlers. In industrial trawling, fish are landed for processing purposes, for example, for the production of fish oil and fish meal. The classification was subsequently used to code the injuries reported to the Danish Maritime Authority over a 5-year period. RESULTS On industrial trawlers, 374 of 394 (95%) injuries were captured by the classification. Setting out and hauling in the gear and nets were the processes with the most injuries and accounted for 58.9% of all injuries. A relatively large number of injuries occurred when embarking and disembarking. Specific risks were identified in a number of other working processes. CONCLUSION Specific areas for risk prevention in fishery may be identified by using a detailed classification system that takes both the specific method of fishing and the working processes into consideration.