April 21, 2022 — Researchers from New York were in Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau and Cordova last week gathering information on salmon gillnetters as part of a study on sleep deprivation.
The research organization is the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety. It’s a non-profit that’s funded through the Centers for Disease Control to come up with solutions for work-related issues with fishermen, farmers and forestry workers.
Right now they’re studying the relationship between commercial fishermen’s sleep and health.
The research team is on the tail end of their data gathering. They’ve already collected information from scallop fishermen in Massachusetts, Dungeness fishermen in Oregon and salmon gillnetters in Alaska. As a control group, they’re studying inshore lobster fishermen because they just go out on day trips.North
Julie Sorensen is the director of the research center. She says they hope to finish analyzing the data this summer and be able to share some of the findings in the fall.