Every year, tens of thousands of Myanmar nationals set sail as part of the global merchant fleet, spending months at sea, far from home, in one of the most demanding professions in the world. Despite their scale and importance to the global economy, almost nothing has been known about their psychological wellbeing, until now.

A team of researchers from the International Executive School has published a new study in the Myanmar Medical Journal that begins to close this gap. Through candid, in-depth conversations with Myanmar seafarers, the research uncovers a workforce quietly carrying significant psychological weight, and a set of deeply held cultural values that shape whether, and how, that weight is ever shared.

What emerges is a nuanced and important picture. Seafarers are carrying real psychological strain, but too often have nowhere safe to bring it. The silence around their struggles isn’t a sign that support isn’t needed. If anything, it’s the opposite: a workforce quietly managing significant distress on its own, largely unseen by the systems meant to protect it. The study is a call to change that, by building support that actually reaches this workforce, rather than assuming that silence means nothing is wrong.

This is exactly the kind of research we hope our students go on to produce: rigorous, humane, and grounded in the real experiences of the people it seeks to understand. Congratulations to the entire research team on a genuinely important contribution to maritime and occupational mental health.

Reference: Naipaul, R., Thant, M.M., Moe, A.M., Persaud, R., Gangai, K.N. & Naipaul, J. (2026). Distress without disclosure: cultural and structural barriers to help-seeking among Myanmar merchant seafarers. Myanmar Medical Journal, 68(3), 16-26.