Causes of occupational accidents in the fishing sector in Portugal

This paper describes a study aimed at identifying the main organisational and systemic causes of accidents at work within the Fishing Sector. Recent statistics on accidents at work, produced by the Eurostat, clearly show that this economic activity is one of great concern, both in the whole European Union (EU-15) and in Portugal. Compared with other Sectors, the incidence rates are very high, particularly in the case of non-fatal accidents. In Portugal alone, the incidence rate in the year 2000 was as high as 10 041 accidents per 100 000 workers in the Sector, thus bringing it to the second place in the national scenario of accidents at work. Given the magnitude of the problem, this work was carried out with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the problem and identifying the most relevant causal factors. To this purpose, a sample of real accidents was investigated and analysed in situ, through field visits to the fishing vessels and interviews with the victims. The paper summarises the methodology used, and presents and discusses the relevant results and main findings. An effort is made to propose some corrective actions and strategies, which are discussed in the concluding section of the article. In summary, this study tries to give a contribution on how to build prevention policies based on factual and realistic information and data, rather than just official statistics and blind incidence rates.