and Relevance The mission of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Assn. (AMSEA) is to reduce the loss of life and injury in the marine environment, especially in commercial fishing. Commercial fishing is one of the top two most dangerous workplaces in the U.S. Thus this project is relevant to the mission of AMSEA and public health. The long term goal of this project is to reduce the fatality rate in commercial fishing in Alaska. This will be accomplished by the following objectives: 1. Enlarge the port based AMSEA instructor network through periodic regional Marine Safety Instructor Training (MSIT). This will provide Alaska's far flung fishing ports with at least 20 new locally based quallified instructors per year, who can in turn instruct marine safety equipment and procedures. A least one of these MSIT courses may take place outside Alaska to create needed regional training infrastructure. 2. Continue to provide updated instructional material to fishermen and fishers. These instructional materials make use of NIOSH, Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board statistics and casualty recommendations and include at least 3 issues of Marine Safety Update to 1,500 mariners per year. 3. Continue to provide federally required Drill Instructor training to at least 350 people a year. 4. Make available Drill Instructor refresher training to at least 65 people a year. Refresher training has been demonstrated to be vital (Lincoln, 2002) to improve survivability during a maritime casualty. 5. Conduct one MSIT refresher course per year to update instructors in effective teaching and content. 6. Continue to assess the relationship between the training in this project and survivability post casualty. 7. Conduct a study on skills retention as a basis to educate about the need for refresher training. Relevance to Public Health: Casualty reports have demonstrated that the failure to properly use safety and survival equipment, as well as the lack of monthly onboard safety drills, has contributed to this high loss of life. The safety training in this proposal, which has already has had a significant statistical effect in reducing fatalties, will be enhanced and expanded.
