Aportes de la Medicina Social a la salud en el trabajo

Abstract

This article proposes a social medicine-based conceptual framework for occupational health in Latin America, distinguished from that the medical establishment and occupational medicine. The structural and situational characteristics of workers’ health and living conditions are also discussed, The main challenge in social medicine today is to elucidate the elements of the neoliberal model in Latin American countries, were workers 'conditions for social reproduction have fundamentally changed for the worse in terms of living and working conditions and health. Neoliberalism tends to manifest itself in greater inefficiency in health care and in social security for workers and their families in comparison to previous decades. Health care is gradually becoming privatized reducing its capacity, and cutting benefits, sick leave, and pensions for unemployment, old age and death due to work-related causes. In summary, there is less social support for workers who must work in unsavory or harmful conditions, or for health conditions resulting from these circumstances. With an understanding of damage to health in biological and individual terms, an overview of occupational health shows that societal relationships in industry define the particular health conditions and problems which occur This conceptual framework includes certain aspects which are not always visible, sucha as workplace organization the relationships between work and other facets, and recognition of the objective and subjective nature of work.These issues are related to methodological and practical and technical advances, the study of workers'health in the face of the neoliberal globalization and its effects on all aspects of life is a work in progress. Systematzing this relationship requires attention to a number of new factors impsed by the new reality, aspects which substantially modify the way it is understood and studied