Abstract:
The research falls within the context of archival preservation, addressing the issues of archive deterioration, the contributing factors, and their effects, both on the archival collections themselves and on the health of professionals working with these records. The objective is to analyze the main factors causing archive deterioration and their consequences for document preservation and occupational health degradation among involved professionals. Specifically, it seeks to map the primary agents of deterioration and their characteristics, present the damages caused by the loss of archival documents in administrative and professional contexts, list occupational diseases resulting from working with archives, and finally, propose a set of actions to prevent the Syndrome of Deteriorated Archives (SAD). These actions include implementing document management, classification systems, appraisal, preservation, temporality, and access to information. The methodological strategy adopted was a descriptive study with a qualitative
approach, using bibliographic and documentary research methods. Data collection was conducted through the Google search engine, using keywords related to the topic. The results indicate that the Syndrome of Deteriorated Archives is a complex issue encompassing environmental, structural, and labor-related aspects. Therefore, it is crucial that archival institutions and responsible entities adopt archive management practices, professional training, and government policies aimed at document conservation and workplace protection.
