Maritime Health Research and Education-NET/Different Data Sources for Cohorts

Besides creating cohorts via the maritime schools, other data sources can be used, like the unions, medical fitness examinations, Radio-medical advice centers, refresher medical courses and STCW courses. However of good reasons we decided to start building the cohorts with the cadets from the maritime schools:

1. The maritime university classes can be reached with minimum efforts and financial costs.
2. The young cadets can also be reached through shipping companies, who allow to do that (example Thailand)
3. The majority of the first year cadets are women and while many fall out later, still we get their valuable critical evaluation of the schools and the work at sea that can be used for pointing out areas for improvement.
4. The cadets can themselves spread this relatively simple research method to other universities and contribute to increase of research capacity.
5. The contact persons for the classes will keep emails and phone numbers safe to follow up with new questionnaires for the cohort and minimise the legal arrangements.
6. Can also be used to keep in contact for the class while out at sea, and minimize loneliness
7. Description of the criteria and methods for selection of the study samples