Subjective production of exposure to agrochemicals. A scoping review

The intensification of agriculture in countries of the Southern Cone of Latin America has led to a significant rise in the use of agrochemicals. Scientific output in the field of health has concentrated on the epidemiological aspects of this issue and studies addressing the social dimensions of exposure to these substances remain scarce. The aim of this scoping review was to assess the scientific literature on the subjective production of groups exposed to agrochemicals. To this end, searches were conducted of the Scopus, PubMed, BVS, SciELO, and DOAJ databases for articles published between 1991 and 2016. A complementary search strategy drawing on references to other studies in the selected articles was also adopted. The findings show that the studies give subjective production different names and that the predominant themes covered by the literature were risk perception and health beliefs. With regard to understanding-explaining the subjective production process, a series of articles focused on individual lifestyles, while another group considered collective ways of life. The wide-ranging findings suggest that this area is a field of study in dispute, where positivist and functionalist approaches converge with historically situated studies that adopt a critical perspective.