Our objective here is to analyze the contemporary changes in the world of work and their effect - or their impact - on the work processes in the area of health. The theoretical reference for this analysis is a specific stream of studies on work developed in Brazil in the area of collective health. Starting from the assumption that work and social needs are consubstantial, the analysis deepens the investigation of the work processes and their constitutive elements, as well as of the inter-subjective and ethical-moral dimensions of the production of health services. Having considered, on the one hand, the complexity of the work objects in the area of health - that demand both a vertical increase in specialized knowledge and the horizontal integration of that knowledge - ; and, on the other, the introduction of new organizational/managerial models and the constant presence of technological innovation and incorporation, we observed significant changes in the work processes, including, among others, the multi-professional and interdisciplinary character of health practices, the re-dimensioning of professional autonomy in the face of a need to recompose specialized work, and the need to provide all health workers with better and permanent professional qualifications, both in its technical and in its ethical-political and communicational dimensions.
work in the area of health; Human Resources in health; occupations in health