Commercial fishing safety doesn’t begin and end on the water. Behind the lifejackets, safety training, and emergency gear is often a fishing community organization coordinating distribution, building trust, and reaching vessels that outside entities can’t. This panel brings together leaders from West Coast fishing family organizations alongside researchers from Oregon State University and the University of Washington to share results from many years of collaboration. 

Over the past decade, partnerships between these groups have produced concrete results for West Coast fishermen and their families. Among them: A lifejacket distribution program in Oregon led to documented behavior changes among three-quarters of recipients, a regional first aid and safety training initiative that grew into a national community of practice, and ongoing research building the evidence base for expanding community health navigation services across Oregon and Washington.  

The organizations on this panel collectively raise tens of thousands of dollars annually in community funding, and their trust with working fishermen is a resource that cannot be manufactured from the outside. This session highlights that work and what it means for the future of fishing community safety on the West Coast. 

Attendees will:

• Hear from fishing community organizations and university researchers on what a decade of collaboration has produced 
• Learn how community-based distribution and outreach models drive safety behavior change in ways that outside programs cannot replicate
• Understand how regional safety and first aid training initiatives can scale into national communities of practice
• Explore how ongoing research into fishing family health access is laying the groundwork for expanded community health navigation services