Broiler mortality and human behavior atwork

Brazilian broiler industry adds a significant contribution to country's exports, employing around five million workers in the production chain. The human work involves multiple aspects, including values, beliefs related to work, cultural aspects, personality, motivation etc. The aim of this research was to analyze the associations between broiler accumulated mortality and workers' beliefs related to work, and influences of the supervisors. The study took place in the state of Parana, Brazil involving 80 broiler integrate farms and 60 workers. A pre-elaborated questionnaire was applied to the workers containing questions related to their health and to some beliefs related to work, as an interview where they could express their feelings. The normal tasks were identified and listed as well as the health status of each worker. The most common group health problems were related to muscle skeletal pain in the lumbar region (53.7%) with a weekly frequency, and within the last three months. The low back pain was reported mostly in prevalence of chronic pain, probably due to some manual activities such as cleaning of drinkers and feeders. Statistical analysis revealed four beliefs related to the accumulated broiler mortality: the results depend on me (a); the Company is serious (b); the broilers suffer (c); and training is needed to grow, broilers (d). Those beliefs related to work were significant in the model that described the accumulated broiler mortality (ABM) as ABM = 3.28 -0.254 a +0.231 b +0.336 c -0.152d. There are associations between beliefs related to work, supervisor style, and broiler accumulated mortality.