Resumen

LUNA-GARCIA, Jairo E. The workers health and the Tropical Oil Company Barrancabermeja, 1916-1940. Rev. salud pública [online]. 2010, vol.12, n.1, pp.144-156. ISSN 0124-0064.

This article analyses the health of workers engaged in oil exploration and exploitation in Colombia during the time of the so-called De Mares concession from 1916 to 1940. Periodisation was constructed which sought to account for yellow fever and tropical diseases within the sanitary situation related to oil exploration and exploitation during this period and region and how it became displaced from its central position by accidentally. The initial period was characterised by the lack of protection to which the workers were subjected at the start of oil-producing activities between 1916 and 1920. The second period was defined by implementing means of protection within the framework of a labour dispute accompanied by the sanitary problem's great burden between 1921 and 1928. The third period (1929 to 1940) dealt with entrepreneurial initiative becoming consolidated so as to make health become a control device, even though this was accompanied by the persistence of important labour disputes in which accidentality had a notable presence. Aspects are identified which should be gone into in greater depth for characterising oil-workers' health at the time of the De Mares concession.

Palabras clave : Work; occupational health; working conditions; yellow fever; occupational risk; accidents at work; oil.

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