[Analysis of environmental technological risks: prospects for the worker's health field]

The objective of this paper is to identify theoretical questions and challenges for the public health field, especially the field of workers' health, raised by technological and environmental risks related to the workplace but going beyond it. Using industrial chemical risks as an example, the authors show the vulnerability of contemporary societies in handling such risks and the worsening situation in peripheral countries. The scope of risk analysis is presented according to the engineering, toxicological, and epidemiological approaches as well as the critique raised by the social sciences. Science alone cannot solve such complex problems as technological and environmental risks. To overcome these limits, some theoretical and methodological proposals have been developed by the risk analysis and workers' health fields. The authors emphasize the discussions on the interdisciplinary, systemic, and participant approaches, incorporating the interaction between knowledge and dialogue as fundamental conditions for the prevention and control of technological and environmental risks.