CW: Mental Health; Attempted Suicide

The life of a seafarer can be a difficult one. Whether they fish, haul cargo, or haul passengers, it is often, by definition, a life away from friends and family. While life at sea can be immensely rewarding for some, there can be a high cost. Mental health in the maritime industry is a growing concern for mariners and their families, employers, fellow shipmates, and government organizations like the United States Coast Guard. Thankfully there has been an increasing trend in efforts to understand the issue and provide support to mariners.

In my career as a seafarer, I have watched crewmembers deal with many difficult moments in life. While stuck at sea, mariners face all sorts of hardships, from struggling marriages and problems with children to the death of loved ones. Even positive life events can be challenging when not home, including the birth of children, weddings, birthdays, and family vacations. I have witnessed many mariners miss significant life events due to the nature of their work. I have missed many of my own. It can be difficult, and these experiences can exacerbate mental health issues. Late at night, years ago, I saw one of our crew standing by the rail looking out into the dark night sea. I went over to talk to him, and he was crying. He said he was done. The specifics are unimportant. He was thinking about tying a heavy pipe fitting to his leg and jumping overboard. We talked. He made it home. I have lost touch with him, but last I heard, he was working on land.

Existing Conditions For Maritime Workers:

Mariners are separated from the people they are most likely to receive support from. Often, mariners work long hours and may be away from home for days at a time, if not weeks or months. Such long periods of time away can take a significant emotional toll. Should an emergency occur while a mariner is at sea, employers will sometimes help, but generally, the unspoken message is, “if you can stay and work, you should.” This situation puts additional emotional pressure on maritime workers. Few workplaces combine the particular conditions of life at sea; I will let Captain Panos Stavrakakis, Ph.D., who is a former naval officer and current head of the Centre for Organizational Health & Wellbeing at the Health and Safety Executive Science and Research Center, summarize it:

It’s clear the seafarer workplace is unique. Workers are isolated, they stay onboard for months, and may suffer from disrupted sleep and lack of exercise. They work long hours in difficult and sometimes potentially unsafe conditions and face job insecurity. They’re living alongside crew who may have very different values, languages, and cultures, so they don’t have their usual support network if they are struggling. In many ways, they experience a constant form of lockdown while at sea – and after last year, we all understand how that can impact mental health and wellbeing.

Now imagine existing in those conditions year after year; such a system is bound to create difficulties. This is not to say that there is no support aboard vessels; we can try to help out our shipmates, but we are not counselors. We, as a crew, have limited capacity for offering mental health support. Quite frankly, in my experience, the workplace culture of seafaring industries is not designed to support people this way. Until recently, reporting a serious mental health issue might have resulted in the loss of a job or the perceived loss of hard-earned credentials. As part of their COVID-19 response, the United States Coast Guard (USCG), through a Marine Safety Information Bulletin and industry briefings, clarified that “the USCG seeks to assure mariners that seeking mental health care will not jeopardize a mariner’s medical certification.” These actions show that mental health care is an area of growing concern, and perhaps the acknowledgment of this issue is a positive side effect of dealing with COVID-19 in the industry.

Globally, organizations such as The Mission to Seafarers, International Seafarers’ Wellness and Assistance Network, and the International Transportation Workers’ Federation, among others, have set up support systems. They have created wellness directories that provide mariners worldwide with resources such as counseling and medical support for mariners and their families. Multilingual helplines, available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, were implemented to assist mariners and their families. Many of these support groups organize vessel visits when ships are in port to check in with mariners and see if they can help. The growing number of programs like these shows an increasing recognition of the fact that maritime workers require support.

Recent Studies on Seafarer Mental Health:

In an attempt to capture information on U.S. mariners, Dr. Marissa Baker, from the Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Department at the University of Washington, conducted a study entitled “U.S. Mariner Mental Health & Wellbeing During COVID-19 and Beyond.” Dr. Baker partnered with the U.S. Committee on the Marine Transportation System’s COVID-19 Working Group, the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration, and the Ship Operations Cooperative Program, suggesting there is support for more mental health research from U.S. agencies. Dr. Baker’s study measured mental health conditions, job satisfaction, and several quality-of-life indicators.

Dr. Baker’s study focused on mariners who hold credentials from the United States Coast Guard (USCG). According to the USCG, there are just under 200,000 mariners with active licenses. USCG demographic data shows that 92.3% of credentialed mariners self-identify as male. Unfortunately, further demographic data on race/ethnicity, age, or industry is not available. What we can say is that the U.S. mariner population is predominantly male with a reported average age of 47. From my own experience, demographics vary widely from sector to sector and from region to region. For example in my experience on the Great Lakes, most mariners are white males from the Midwest, while in the Gulf of Mexico the population is far more diverse including many recent immigrants. Differences in working conditions and demographics are likely to have an impact on mental health findings. In further studies, it would be useful to further investigate differences between sectors.

In Dr. Baker’s study of U.S. seafarers, respondents were asked to rank how frequently they experienced a number of mental health conditions over a set amount of time. While the criteria for a “high score” varies by condition, the general indicator for scoring high was experiencing a condition on 25% or more days surveyed. Based on respondents’ scores 50% displayed a high score for at least one of the five mental health outcomes. Digging deeper into these five outcomes the numbers show respondents scoring 20.7% for major depressive disorder, 22.7% for generalized anxiety disorder, 8.9% indicated suicidal ideation, 38.2% had scores indicating elevated stress, and 18.4% indicated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The report also found that “outcomes were not distributed evenly” showing “women, younger workers, and workers with certain credentials…and in certain industries…tended to have higher rates of adverse mental health outcomes.”

As a former mariner, these findings are insightful but fail to represent the experiences of most mariners. This study captured less than 1% of credentialed mariners in the U.S. and relied on self-reporting, suggesting that respondents were those most motivated to participate in the survey. My experience suggests that maritime work is often a “culture of silence.” Underreporting is undoubtedly an issue that I have personally observed. The demographics show a disproportionate number of licensed officers responded to the survey. Keep in mind that, in general, there are likely to be two or more unlicensed crew members for every licensed officer. Licensed personnel are likely to receive better pay, more preferred work schedule rotations, have increased access to outside communication, and have better berths aboard the vessel. In short, it would be useful to see the results from a survey more heavily directed toward unlicensed personnel as that data would provide greater insight into differences based on job conditions.

Dr. Baker’s research focuses on U.S. seafarers, but globally, the demographics are very diverse. There are nearly 2 million seafarers from nearly every country in the world and studies have found that significant mental health issues exist across the global population of seafarers. Strikingly a report from the ITF Seafarers’ Trust and Yale University found that 20% of survey respondents reported suicidal ideation within the previous two weeks of taking the survey. While there are certainly differences in the global survey, what is common across the industry is similar working conditions and time away from home which can range from a few days to months. For example, some mariners during the COVID-19 pandemic were unable to go home for over a year. Mariners by definition often work in isolation from their support networks.

Mental Health and Maritime Policy:

Mental health in the maritime industry is a significant issue and has implications for both individual health and general safety. Zooming out, policymakers should consider mental health when working on issues that impact maritime workers. Issues including marine fuel decarbonization, port infrastructure, navigation technologies, and sustainable supply chains can positively and negatively impact maritime workers. For example, maybe more automated systems for cargo operations are fuel efficient, but will they displace existing workers or perhaps reduce the time at port during which a mariner can seek medical care? Will the implementation of these technologies put further stress on crews that are already stretched thin? It is critical to include workers in policy discussions that will alter the conditions of their workplace. In some cases, there may be substantial positives; in others, there may be significant negatives, but to understand these effects, we must ask the workers directly.

Now is a time when many long-established maritime policies and technologies are being reexamined. As a part of the conversation around the “greening” of the industry, there is an opportunity to discuss ways in which changes could be made to benefit maritime workers as well. The aim of future policies in the sector should be to promote not just environmental sustainability, but also establish better support for maritime workers. Healthier workers are safer workers and the goal of any maritime work should be to send mariners back safely to their families.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: (800) 273-8255

How to Find a Therapist