Work ability of teachers in Brazilian private and public universities

Over the years, the number of teacher's removals from their activities for health problems have grown in Brazil. In a survey conducted in 2010 with 2685 teachers from state of Sao Paulo, 27% reported that they had to stay away from work for health reasons and 18% claimed to have depression. This article uses the Work Ability Index (W.A.I) to compare the work ability between teachers from Brazilian one private and one public universities and to relate this index with specific demographic variables. The study was conducted with 53 Engineering teachers. Mann-Whitney Test and Tukey Test were used as statistical tests to certify the sample studied. Results demonstrated that the private university index is similar the public university and oldest people feel more capable about teaching in public university, for example. Studies about teacher ability of work must increase to improve its health and life quality at work.