Table 4

Comparison of fatal accident rates in international commercial fishing

Study rank	Country*	Study period	Deaths from accidents at work	Population at risk	Fatal accident rate (per 100000 fishermen-years)§
*References are 17–19 for studies ranked 1–3; 6 for study 4; 9 for study 5; 20, 21 for studies 6 and 7; 8 is the present study; 22–26 for studies 9–13; and 24 for study 14.
†Populations at risk are estimated from the number of fatal accidents and mortality rates cited.
‡Fatal accidents include drowning of uncertain circumstances and disappearances at sea.
§Comparison of fatal accident rates across the different studies can be affected by variation in the study inclusion criteria; for example, according to factors such as whether accidents in port are included, whether disappearances at sea and unexplained drowning are included as accidents, and whether part time fishermen are included in the population at risk.
1	Alaska	1980–88	278	67052	415
2	New Zealand	1975–84	79	30385†	260
3	UK – Grimsby	1963	6	2460	244
4	UK	1958–67	197	98100	201
5	UK	1961–80	711	420710†	169
6	Denmark	1988–92	44	30555	144
7	Australia	1982–84	47	32867†	143
8	UK	1976–95	527‡	440355	120
9	Alaska	1991–98	162	139200	116
10	Iceland	1966–86	132	147649	89
11	Poland – Baltic sea	1975–84	33	48113	69
12	USA	1982–87	648	1378723†	47
13	Canada – Atlantic coast	1975–83	84	183378	46
14	Poland – deep sea	1975–84	11	64044	17