Nursing personnel is essential in hospital, health centers and enterprises and is the large work force in health system. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a large city in two public hospitals and five health centre with the objective of to evaluate the work ability and health aspects of nursing staff. The sample was composed by 570 workers. The Work Ability Index – WAI and a questionnaire with socio-demographic, health and life style data was applied. The majority of workers was women (83%), married (50.4%), and was working in night shift work (65.6%); 61.4% was auxiliary nursing, 22.3% was registered nurses (RN). The average age was 38.9 years (SD 7.8) and the Body Mass Index mean was 25.8 (SD 5.3). Only 17.2% referred to practice at least 150 minutes of physical exercise five times per week or more. 26.8% had a second job. The work ability mean was 39.3 (SD 5.3) points. Age had a negative correlation with WAI (p=0.0052). Public hospital and health centre workers had poor work ability score when compared with workers from another branches. Public policies related to workplace health promotion need to be implemented in public hospital and health centre to improve the work ability Ver menos