[Aspects of the current workers' rehabilitation scenario in Brazil: strides and setbacks].

The field of work rehabilitation in Brazil recently incorporated changes in its underlying concepts and principles, expanding the definition of incapacity for work based on the biopsychosocial health model and adopting a territorial approach and inter-sector practices, with a view towards backing the implementation of an integrated inter-sector work rehabilitation model. However, these conceptual and normative advancements have still not been implemented in practice; they have actually come under threat from Brazil's on-going political crisis. This article discusses the current scenario in the work rehabilitation program under the Brazilian National Social Security Institute (INSS), presents the strides in the underlying theoretical premises and the concerns of work rehabilitation in the face of recent measures that reinforce the biomedical basis and the compensatory policy that led the program over the years, and signal the impending privatization of this social security service and right. The article suggests that work rehabilitation faces a scenario of uncertainties and concerns, intensified by the institutional undermining of the INSS. Rapid structural changes in the INSS and in the work rehabilitation program have undermined the gains that had promoted the initial development of a comprehensive, inter-sector work rehabilitation program aimed at healthy return to work.