The purpose of this article is to present some results of a research that, by articulating the research and a training programme, analysed the relationship between health and work in the schools of Great Vitória (State of Espírito Santo). The epistemological perspective underlying the research was centred on the activity of work. Our method for the production of knowledge was implemented by building a space for a dialogue between the knowledge that results from the teachers' experience and that produced by the researchers themselves. With this objective in mind, we designed a work plan that included, in its first stage, the application of the questionnaire SRQ and, on the basis of the results obtained, the construction of a Training-Investigation Programme on Health and Work in the Schools of Great Vitória for the teachers. One of the major results of the latter was the beginning of the construction, in each school, and between the Great Vitória schools, of a network to debate about the health-work relations (being implemented through a web site) and the expansion of the research-training process to other municipalities of the State. The research results indicate the urgent need for research methods that will give priority to the teachers' experiences as indispensable knowledge for understanding the relationship health and work in schools.
work activity; health; school
