Work-related psychosocial risk factors: a contemporary analysis

Abstract

Introduction: work-related psychosocial factors have stood out in debates concerning health protection and promotion in occupational contexts. Objective: this essay demonstrates how the lack of thematic exploration regarding the antagonism and structural conflict between capital and labor, as well as its co-optation by neoliberal managerial logic, impoverishes the debate and weakens initiatives aimed at transforming the work environment. Method: a literature review was conducted using historical materialism as a theoretical framework. Results: policies, instruments, and measures formulated to protect workers’ health developed under the ideological framework of capitalist accumulation and neoliberal governmentality become understandings and interventions that, far from transforming actual work situations, mask the role played by work in occupational health. They consecrate actions focused on individuals, dampen social struggles, and increase pressure on workers. Conclusion: addressing psychosocial risks should not be limited to mitigating them; rather, it should find its purposes and foundations in a theoretical-practical horizon that unveils the need to overcome the capitalist economy itself.