The vulnerability of community health workers to biological risk

• Autor(a) principal: Rezende, Fabiana Ribeiro de
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Mendonça, Katiane Martins, Galdino Júnior, Hélio, Salgado, Thaís de Arvelos, Alves, Clery Mariano da Silva, Amaral, Tauana Souza, Tipple, Anaclara Ferreira Veiga
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Eletrônica de Enfermagem
• Texto Completo: https://revistas.ufg.br/fen/article/view/62222
• topic: Community Health Workers; Occupational Exposure; Communicable Disease Control; Containment of Biohazards; Information Dissemination; Agentes Comunitários de Saúde; Exposição Ocupacional; Controle de Doenças Transmissíveis; Contenção de Riscos Biológicos; Disseminação de Informação

The objectives were to identify occupational exposure of community health workers to biological material; to characterize the means of exposure, organic secretions and circumstances involved; to describe the behaviors adopted, and verify the participation of these workers in training on biological risk and biosafety. Descriptive cross-sectional study. Participants comprised 80 workers of the 89 members of family health teams from a sanitary district of the municipality of Goiânia. Results: 23 (28.8%) reported occupational exposure and 10 (43.5%) reported more than one exposure. Most exposures involved saliva on intact skin or mucous membrane. Less than half reported participating in any form of training that addressed biological risk and biosafety. The community health workers were exposed to biological material and they were predominantly unprepared. Public policies for these workers must clearly observe biological risk and its control as a strategy guideline, provide worker protection, and ensure this subject is included in the education of community health workers.