2018-2020 Research Project

Perception of the risk of contamination by PTC through feeding in pregnant and lactating women: MUMFOOD study. Funded by Servicio de Salud Andaluz de la Consejería de Salud (Code AP-0147-2017).

The project focuses on the study of trust/distrust in food consumption shown by the social actors concerned about the presence of toxic substances (Persistent Toxic Compounds, PTCs) and the responsibilities attributed to the potential long-term effects that these substances could produce on human health. The internal contamination that derives from the impact of these substances has important cultural, social, ideological and economic implications that this project aims to analyze in the universe of pregnant and breastfeeding women, a period of the life cycle in which food is a central issue on women’s health. From an ethnoepidemiological approach, the discourses and practices of pregnant and breastfeeding women will be studied on their daily context. The project aims to deepen into different levels of risk perception of internal contamination according to the role that women assign to toxic corporality in the process of construction of human health transmitted by the consumption of food during pregnancy and breastfeeding. The cultural diversity, culinary traditions, beliefs and values ​​of women will be analyzed in two different contexts: rural-urban in the autonomous communities of Andalusia and Catalonia. Based on a quantitative, qualitative and ethnographic methodology at a comparative level, this research expects to obtain richer and deeper results on the sociocultural context of the limits of acceptance of risk, danger, confidence and distrust in food consumption.

Research team: Andrés Fontalba, Araceli Muñoz, Arantza Begueria, Cristina Larrea-Killinger,Jaume Mascaró, Juan Pedro Arrébola, Lina Casadó, Maria Clara de Moraes Prata Gaspar, Mariena Rubio, Miguel Company (Chief Researcher), Montserrat Fábregas, Oscar García Algar, Virginia Gil Aguilar