Workers’ health surveillance: a study of major accidents at work

Abstract

Background and objectives: Work accidents are the biggest health problem of Brazilian workers, thus, the objective of the study is to characterize sociodemographic and occupational data affected by serious accidents workers work in the municipality of Santa Cruz do Sul/RS. Method: this is a field study, documental, retrospective, with data collection in epidemiological report forms of the Municipal Unit Worker Health Reference (UMREST) in the period of 2008 to 2010. Results: We conducted data collection in 1263 patient notification forms of the UMREST, and found 986 cases of serious work accident, and 78.59% of cases with male workers aged 20 to 29 years. In 2008 there were more cases reported in the information systems of Occupational Health. The occupations with the highest occurrence were the production line feeders (13,48%), tobacco processing assistant (8.0%), workers in the maintenance and conservation of buildings and public parks (7.0%). Among the types of accidents, 66.63% were typical accidents and 31.23% of commuting accidents. It identified the central area of the city as the most frequent cases with 47.2%, followed by the Industrial District neighborhood with 27.1% of cases. Final Thoughts: it was found that the accidents occurred more often on male workers, young, from labor institutions located in the central area of the city. Thus, we emphasize the need for prevention and care actions that meet the profile of the workers studied. KEYWORDS: Accidents at work. Occupational health surveillance. Occupational health