Biomedical subjects
C Minayo-Gomez
Publications and source records attributed to C Minayo-Gomez.
[History and dilemmas in the development of the worker's health field]
This article reflects on the theoretical and practical foundations impacting and shaping the field of workers' health in Brazil, as part of the overall field of collective health. By analyzing the various forms of approaching the relationship between work and health, the paper emphasizes its complex and conflicting nature as a central reference for the work process, in keeping with the premises of social medicine in Latin America. This focus underscores the need for interdisciplinary approaches contemplating and even extrapolating the links between areas of knowledge generally ascribed to the field of health. Finally, the paper gives a brief diagnosis of the current situation in this field, where pending questions join those resulting from globalization of the economy and particularly industrial restructuring, in light of which the challenge is raised to broaden the objects of study and intervention to include the implications of outsourcing, increasingly precarious labor conditions, informal labor, and unemployment on the population's health and living conditions.
[Child and adolescent workers: a commitment for collective health]
This paper presents some issues pertaining to child and adolescent labor and their impact on health, pointing out the main structural characteristics which are responsible for and socially justify the early incorporation of this segment into the labor market. In Brazil, legislation governing adolescent labor is frequently ignored, showing the need to implement health surveillance programs involving both public institutions and civil rights movements.
[Epilepsy, epileptics, the work: conflicting relations].
Participation in the workplace by people with epilepsy is conditioned by various interrelated issues concerning epilepsy itself, the epileptic individual, and society's implicit cultural codes. In order to analyze how such conflictive participation interferes decisively in the quality of life of people with epilepsy, a survey was conducted with 339 patients at the University Hospital of Universidade Federal Fluminense. Patients answered questionnaires including level of schooling, professional qualifications, employment situation, frequency, type, and duration of seizures, associated phenomena, and prejudice towards epilepsy. We observed that satisfactory management of seizures is decisive for their success at work. All patients with daily seizures and 9.3% of those with weekly seizures had never been employed. We conclude that any intervention in this context must include the implementation of multiprofessional and intersectorial therapeutic programs and legislation to protect epileptic patients' rights in a broad effort at demystification of epilepsy.