Medical expert reports in occupational health: a bibliographic review

Forensic medicine is a branch of medicine located within both the health and law domains that contributes in issues that include civil, criminal, and labor law. Within labor law, medical expert reports aim to evaluate the capacity of workers and ensure them their rights and duties. This study aimed to discuss the information available on the scientific literature regarding expert reports in occupational health. This is a bibliographic review ranging the period of 2012 to 2018 that searched the MEDLINE, PubMed, and LILACS databases, as well as official documents on the subject. We selected 7 articles corresponding to the initially proposed criteria and read them thoroughly. This allowed us to establish 3 main themes corresponding to the study results: 1) The importance of expert reports in occupational health; 2) Hurdles in the context of expert reports in occupational health; and 3) The role of the medical expert in labor lawsuits. Through the selected studies and the evaluation of the initial proposition of this review, we confirmed the importance of expert reports in ensuring workers’ rights in occupational health. Moreover, this study allowed the identification of gaps in studies regarding the role of expert reports in occupational health, thus more research should be encouraged in view of the great social relevance of this theme.