Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III, our Munting Nayon columnist won back-to-back awards from two different international health conferences in recognition of his research work on the health of seafarers. Don, a Filipino medical doctor based at Cardiff University in Wales, UK is a Nippon Foundation Fellow at the Seafarers International Research Centre where he conducts studies on the health of the workers of the maritime industry.

He was judged to have the best studies submitted to the 11th Conference of International Society of Travel Medicine held in Budapest, Hungary on 24-28 May 2009 and received an award amounting to 3,000 USD including a travel grant. He submitted two studies entitled, “International seafarers as patients: towards a model of an effective global health system” and “Global seafarers: why risky to STIs and HIV when they work and travel”. According to the chair of the jurors, Dr Assunta Uffer-Marcolongo of Canada, “it was interesting to note that not only one but both studies came out receiving the top scores out of many studies submitted and judged”. ISTM President Frank von Sonnenburg of Germany extended his congratulations to the awardee.

The week after, Don received medals for the studies he presented at the First International Congress of Maritime, Tropical and Hyperbaric Medicine at Gdynia, Poland on 4-6 June 2009. His paper presentations were “An analysis of the AIDS epidemic in the maritime industry” and “The anatomy of stress: the Filipino seafarer and his work”. The latter study was conducted together with Nerissa Espiritu and Eva Lopez of the National Maritime Polytechnic of the Philippines. This government-funded study is based on a survey of three thousand Filipino seafarers. The conference was held to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Interfaculty Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia of the Medical University of Gdansk. Dr Bogdan Jaremin, Director of the Institute handed the medals. He also received a travel grant to attend the said congress.

Don is one of the very few Filipinos, if not the only one, doing extensive studies on the health of seafarers. He believes that it is incumbent upon the country that the health and welfare of seafarers should be analyzed for purposes of evidence in formulating policy since the country has a third of the global seafarers. He laments the fact that there is no institution in the Philippines which does this task. The country does not produce data that will help advocate for better working and living conditions for their own seafarers. Don finds it quite unusual that WHO has designated Collaborating Centres for the Health of Seafarers to institutions in Poland, Ukraine, Germany and Denmark, when in fact these countries do not have many seafarers.

He proposes that it is in the interest of the country to establish a research centre which would study the health and welfare of the Filipino migrants as they leave the country, as they work abroad and as they return. Migrants are at high risk to many health problems since they do not have access to health services and they have many risk factors when they travel and migrate. The Philippines has eight million migrant workers. Upon finishing his PhD, where he does it at the same university, Don wants to go back to the Philippines and do exactly what he loves doing, conducting studies in the area of health and development specially the Filipino migrant workers.

This is not the first time Don won international awards. In 2005 he won the World Science Forum research competition in Budapest, Hungary and in 2008 he received the British Council’s SHINE International Student Award in the UK.