A brief history of worker’s health in Brazil’s unified health system: Progress and challenges

Abstract

This article draws on current understandings of workers’ health in Brazil that emerged concomitantly with advances in the field of public health. It describes the institutional trajectory of the field of workers’ health within the Unified Health System (SUS), emphasizing the challenges faced in developing actions in the sphere of workers’ health surveillance. It synthesizes the often tortuous path taken over the last 30 years between multiprofessional training processes, coordination between different levels of the SUS, interinstitutional support, especially from public universities, and interaction with participatory processes. It provides an overview of progress and challenges in the face of continuous changes in working conditions and work organization and the limited effectiveness of government policies designed to address occupational health risks. Finally, it suggest that progress has come out of the intertwining of social and academic movements, with the opening up of institutional spaces that transform the SUS, reviving the underlying principles of participation and health promotion in broad vision of state policy.