Prevalence of occupational diseases in women in Universities: Review Article

Introduction: The research hereby presented is about the disease process of the working woman, understood from a socio-historical perspective of the worker. When talking about workers, specifically about women, various factors influence their entry into the job market. It can be perceived that the work division by gender contributes to the inequalities between women and men in several ways, particularly when it comes to health. When not dealing with the existing differences between social gender conditions, these can affect in the comprehension of work for women, in their working conditions and consequently, in matters related to the health prevention at work. Objective: To identify the prevalence of occupational diseases within women in universities. Methods: This systematic review was elaborated taking as a basis the PRISMA Statement methodology, retrieving articles from the Scopus and Web of Science electronic databases, and associating the prevalence of occupational diseases within women in universities. Obtained The obtained information was be analyzed along with the official data provided by the International Labour Organization-ILO and the World Health Organization-WHO. Discussion. Searches provided outcomes about the evidence on the technologies, benefits and even discussions on how the working conditions particularly affect women and represent potential causes of diseases that can negatively impact the quality of life at work, and therefore, prove the need of comprehensive data collection with the aim of contributing to modify that reality. Within studies, initial considerations promote the possibility of deepening knowledge with new searches. Conclusions: Results demonstrate the importance of perceiving the diseases within specific professional categories, hereby represented by the health professionals, professors, and administrative technicians. The article brought the contribution of studies that prove the importance of perceiving the female worker’s profile, considering besides age, the associated diseases as well as the diseases that despite not being declared as occupational, perturb the work environment and need to be deepened as such. From the studied articles, this work proves the need for extending the searches oriented to perceive the factors that cause the highest percentages of diseases within women.