Perceptions of bricklayers and maids on health and work at Serra, ES

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the connections between labor and the health-disease process as experienced by maids and construction workers from a Family Health Unit based in Serra, ES. It is part of an exploratory, qualitative research that used focal group methodology for data collection, and thematic categories were emphasized through content analysis for data review. The studied groups of workers view labor as a basic need for survival, greatly affecting the study and leisure time; therefore, they become captives of these occupations and it [ultimately] determines their powerlessness for socioeconomic ascension. Expressions of social relations of gender, where women are burdened by the double workday were also described. These workers have a broader, pluralistic and holistic concept of health as they articulate it with material conditions of existence. This study reappraises the role of labor as one of the determinant factors of the health-disease process and also highlights the need for the Brazilian Health System to include this topic on its formulations.