Abstract

GARCIA UBAQUE, JUAN CARLOS. Health promotion in work places: an opportunity to develop. av.enferm. [online]. 2009, vol.27, n.1, pp.124-129. ISSN 0121-4500.

Although since Ottawa it has been stated that "the way society organizes work should contribute to creating a healthy society" and that "health promotion generates gratifying, pleasant, secure and motivating work and living conditions", in Colombia the need to integrate efforts between public and occupational health has not been achieved, to the extent that, for example, in Law 100 of 1993 the occupational risk system is independent from the health system and in the same way a division is observed between the formal sector workers and those of the informal sector for the purposes of coverage and promotion and prevention programs. This said, public health and occupational health are disciplines that have developed separately, although if ones approaches them unprepared, one finds that they pursue similar ends: health promotion and protection of people with a group focus. However, in each one of them the individual is treated differently; for example in the case of a worker efforts are centered on controlling work conditions that pose risks, what in synthesis would be achieved if one would manage to adapt the work place to individual characteristics and this way manage to prevent the emergence of damages related to performing the task. On the other hand, in the case of citizens one seeks to control environmental factors of general nature and influence on individual behaviors to achieve conducts oriented towards health and avoiding risk conducts, at the same time that with their community one attempts to create settings that favor those conducts, pretending this way to prevent the emergence and reduce the morbidity of the most common illnesses in the specific social group, which is essentially determined by sharing vital cycle characteristics or geographic location. This work presents the synthesis of an approach from the promotion of health seeking possible approaching points and raising some challenges for public health in the now much broader field of workers' health.

Keywords : Health Promotion; Occupational Health; Public Health.

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