IMHA Research Archives/IMHA-Research Network

The IMHA-Research Network
The objective is to strengthen the network for better and more - research, teaching/training and evidence based practise by building stronger national and international collaborations. With other words to develop a global interdisciplinary research-, information- and training collaboration in maritime health to the benefit of all the seafarers. More specifically to promote the IMHA policy to improve job satisfaction, well-being and health for all while working and in the retirement. The IMHA-Research Policy is to strengthen the evidence-based maritime health practice by interdisciplinary, collaborative research, training and information activities. The WHO definitions of health and prevention and the updated WHO/ILO guidelines for healthy workplaces are applied. The activities are done as a combination of unpaid voluntary or/and paid work. The IMHA-Research-Database includes:


 * Conference- and meetings -Power points PDF/PPT and abstracts
 * Scientific articles that are not available in IMH/PubMed or other databases

The IMHA Database
With the help from our colleagues, we collected links to the PPt's and abstracts from the latest meetings and conferences. We hope to be able to continue the collection as a collaborative work. Please report if there are problems to get the data and if you have good ideas on how to improve the collection and archiving:

2014 December 20th: Tanger

2014 October: IMHA Research Meeting and Workshop in Barcelona: "Better... " http://www.semm.org/cihf/ResearchMeetingBCN.html

2014 October 15-18, Barcelona: VIII Congreso Internacional de Medicina MarítimaVIII Congreso Internacional de Medicina Marítima - video https://vimeo.com/110005258

2013 ISMH12 Brest: all presentations https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o9nkn7b6gj9mn55/AABTfeeXvIdyY6A9wLuqfKE4a

Perspectives for the Database
We would like to include all abstracts and presentations /proceedings - in a prospective way - from all the conferences and meetings. Later, materials from the past symposia and workshops will be included in due time. For a start we will ask the national maritime scientific associations to provide us with the links to their materials from their meetings and conferences for the latest years. We propose that the files are stored "in the Sky" in the Dropboxes, Google-drives and other similar drives in the "owner countries" with links to the IMHA pages. We will collect the links and bring them in the IMHA-News. Further we hope to establish short training events on the ISMH´s, workshops and meetings on how to use and contribute to improving the database. The IMHA homepage (or the SEMM) will be used as the central database with links to the national maritime health associations and research units.

Post-conference tasks document sharing

Alf Magne Horneland, Chair of the ISMH13 in Bergen told us that many participants have requested access to the documents. Unfortunately the distribution of the files was delayed because we wanted to find the best form to disseminate the information. Based on these experiences we are convinced we need to add an item on the conference agendas: “Post-conference document sharing - responsibility". We also need more feed-back about the problems with the distribution and we should give instructions on how to get access to the documents.

b) Notes on the research themes

1 Competencies in maritime medical health theme Coordinators: Luisa Canals, Alcaraz, Brice Loddé The objectives are to develop the competencies with the universites, authortities and practical doctors. Projects: a) Filippine study, responsible dr. Salomon and dr Teves, Cadiz and Brest University

2 Exposure matrix study theme Coordinators: Rafael Lefkowitz, Martin Slade The objective is to collect exposure measurements (noise, indoor-air climate, vibrations, psycho-social, safety climate etc.) related to job titles and work tasks on the ships. The exposure risk assessments can be used for immediate improvements of the work-environment and for cohort based register studies.

3 TMAS-telemedicine theme Coordinators: Olaf Jensen, Lulu Hjarnø Projects: a) Danish international - repatriations (Kimmo, Lulu) b) Swedish analysis of RM-contacts and repatriations: Westlund, Jensen, Nilsson, c) USA Rafael and and M. Slade: repatriations

Organisation of the Network

The intention is that the IMHA-Research Network is mainly based on the national maritime societies, the university research units´ activities and the company activities. The coordinators´ task is to help people getting in contact and to update information about contact persons, projects home pages, upcoming conferences and training activities. Each coordinator has one or more back-ups. The intention is to inspire all seafaring countries to establish their maritime scientific society in the connection with IMHA-research (Figure 1). We have asked IMHA to arrange an updated and global list of the maritime medical societies with contacts and websites on the IMHA homepage.

The database-, research- and training activities:

The figure doesn´t at all covers all the activities. This is only a first draft of the current activities to be updated continuously. We request all members and non-members of IMHA - to update the information for their on-going activities in the 3 research themes, the Database and the Training activities. At the moment we see the current activities as decribed in the table. Please inform us about any other activity you think should be included.