Integrative and participatory pesticides risk assessment and management in Brazil: Assessing rural workers' vulnerabilities and linking research to action

Brazil is the second largest individual consumer-market for pesticides in the World, corresponding to half of all Latin America consumption.  According to estimates from The Brazilian Ministry of Health, every year about 700.000-people are contaminated by pesticides in the country, with 2.000 deaths, particularly in rural areas, where these chemicals are widely used.  Major studies about rural contamination by pesticides in Brazil does not take into consideration the social dimensions of human exposure, focusing its inquiries in technical analyses of risk, based on toxicological knowledge.  The present research project was directed to a rural population of Rio de Janeiro State (n = 1500 people) extremely vulnerable to pesticides exposure.  It was developed an integrative and participatory risk assessment approach that aimed a) to incorporate population’s risk perception into the risk assessment’s scope; b) to verify possible correlation between risk perception and population’s exposure to pesticides; c) to analyze the defensive strategies developed by the workers, and its impact in their health and in local work practices. Field data analysis revealed some questions related to the risks perception profile of the studied population, including the development of defensive strategies facing the dangers experienced in the work, the importance of the communication in the construction of the workers risk perceptions, the subjective responses facing potential dangerous situations and the role of the individual risks perception as determinants of workers’ exposure to pesticides. Based on these results, an accurate risk communication approach was developed and applied, focusing children, male-workers and women’s vulnerabilities and linking research to action. With this initiative, it was possible to evince the importance of participatory risk assessment approaches for risk management and health surveillance.