Occupational health education: health management of Brazilian public school teachers

Abstract

Over the past few years, teachers’ health has been drawing attention of university studies, especially regarding work-related disorders and, for us, the way the government has acted on this particular reality. This paper aimed to understand, by means of an integrative literature review, “if” and “how” workers’ health management has proposed actions and policies for teachers. We accessed the Virtual Health Library to survey data from 1990 to 2014. From the 242 publications found, 52 were analyzed. Only four publications registered assistance via Public Health Management. Towards this reality, we raised three hypotheses: Programs that target this category are being realized, but the experiences aren’t being released; research institutions aren’t interested about the subject; or yet: there aren’t programs that work with teachers’ illness within the public policies range. We conclude that further actions and policies are necessary to prevent the truth from being silenced. New studies about the health/illness processes and the lack of management may contribute to improve the situation.