[Work-related accidents: urban violence and death in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil]

This article focuses on the magnitude of work-related deaths in Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. Death certificates were used to investigate 159 cases, or 18% of the 877 deaths from external causes in 1992. Some 31 cases were identified. The principal cause of death among these workers was homicide, with 58% of cases (15 from fire arms and 3 from knives), followed by traffic accidents, with 29% (5 motor vehicle collisions and 4 pedestrians run down by motor vehicles). Of these 31 deaths, 17 were workers from the formal labor market, of whom 11 did not fit into the regular reporting procedures for work-related accidents. The other 14 deaths were of workers from the informal labor market (7), individuals involved in illicit activities (6), and unknown (1), in which cases reporting as work-related accidents was also inappropriate. These data suggest negligence by the public sector in dealing with this issue and the fact that official statistics fail to reflect the reality of daily working conditions. The authors conclude that health surveillance requires other data collection mechanisms besides those used by the Social Welfare System, so as to include all actual risks related to work situations.