Interdisciplinary intervention in the food sector: knowing and preventing damages to health of adolescent workers

DOI: 10.15343/0104-7809.200630.1.9

Abstract

This article aims to identify the importance of knowing environments and conditions of work in order to understand the developed
activities, to recognize risk factors affecting health specific of this population and to detect the difference there is between damages to health
of adolescent and adult workers, to consider transformations in work environments, conditions and relations. The methods used in the study were
systematic observations of the work in the different shifts of the companies, the application of a questionnaire with all the workers, interviews
with 20% of the workers charged of each function, groups of reflection with employees representatives and validation of the results on the
presence of employees representatives from the different sectors. The study identified characteristics specific to the relation health/work and
adolescence in the diverse aspects of the investigated activities of the food sector: physical, biomechanical, cognitive and organizational. As
regards morbity we can say that the specific damages to health of this population are in a greater number and more serious than in the case of
the adult population. Although we obtained some results like changes in work environments, conditions and relations and the reduction of the
occurrence of reported damages to health related to work, we recognize the limit of our actions when we perceive that the great challenge is to
invest in interventions that make possible a greater social integration and a better learning at school, contributing to the reduction of the urban
violence and the betterment of the quality of social, affective and professional life of adolescents.