Community health workers: working conditions and occupational health

INTRODUCTION: Community health workers are qualified professionals who provide health services that are culturally appropriate for a region. In their work routine, these professionals experience the most diverse and risky situations, which may cause vulnerability to the process of illness and even compromise care to users of the Brazilian Unified Health System. Therefore, understanding the factors associated with the work process that imply the illness of community health workers helps increase the safety of the service provided by these workers. OBJECTIVES: To analyze the implications for illness arising from the work process of community health workers. METHODS: A cross-sectional, descriptive, quantitative study was conducted with the participation of all community health workers in the municipality of Baixio, state of Ceará, Brazil. The interviews were conducted by means of a questionnaire containing questions to assess the work context with quantitative answers, from February to April 2019. Data were analyzed by the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, followed by Spearman correlation test. Differences were considered significant at a p-value < 0.05. RESULTS: High demand for results in the workplace and insufficient work instruments demonstrated a directly proportional correlation with headache, body pain, back pain, and vision disorders (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Working conditions can directly affect the health of community health workers. Therefore, public strategies are essential to ensure workers’ safety and quality of care for users of the Brazilian Unified Health System services.