Approach of Health Aspects in the Environmental Licensing in the Brazilian mining sector

The mining activity generates several negative and positive impacts. Among the negatives impacts, it is find the reduced air quality, noise generation and increased population flow, which directly affect the health quality of the local population and the enterprise workers. Thus, the aim of this work was to perform an analysis of documents as Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and Terms of Reference (TR) regarding the approach of health aspects in mining activities licensed by the Brazilian federal environmental agency, proposing a methodology for its evaluation. The methodology consisted of a qualitative and quantitative analysis of health aspects according to the matrix already used in another study. It was proposed to insert weights for attributes analysis culminating in a scale of approach to health aspects: low, medium and high. Thus, limitations were found regarding the availability of studies and TRs in the environmental agency system. Regarding the EIS, most aspects of health had a medium approach, the diagnostic stage was highlighted as the most complete and the monitoring and accompaniment stage were detected as presenting the lowest approach. The greatest weaknesses was the identification of specialists responsible for the health approach, the lack of estimates of investments in the sector.