SRA-E Lisbon 2017

According to the World Health Organization (2015), approximately 600 million people become ill after consuming contaminated food every year. In the governmental sphere, the Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) uses the concept of sanitary risk to regulate, control and monitor the production and consumption of products and services related to health. The variety of potential risks sets the need for a permanent analysis strategy that involves producers, suppliers, food suppliers professionals and the public. The pertinent literature, however, is still scarce, especially considering the magnitude of the associated sanitary risk (Silva and Lana 2014). As a threat resulting from an activity, service or substance to the quality of life of a given population, a sanitary risk involves, - in addition to an assessment of objective evidence of health damage from exposure to hazards -, the social, economic and political environment in which it occurs. The integration of these considerations defines the risk management approach and allows the establishment of effective strategies to combat risk (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária 2015, Silva and Lana 2014). The objective is to discuss the concept of sanitary risk from the perspective of food safety within three themes: mass events and risk management; military institutions and food safety culture; and food handlers' risk perception from the perspective of Bourdieu's social theory. The topic 'sanitary risk' as an object of research was born in the research group in 2006 with the elaboration and validation of a checklist of Good Practices of Handling in school feeding. In 2012, an instrument was developed to be applied at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In 2015 was published the Guide for Health Surveillance in Mass Events: Risk Management, organized by Anvisa and supported by the Pan American Health Organization. Researches about the risk perception of food handlers from the street foods and commercial restaurants were conduct based on Bourdieu's perspective. In 2016, it was initiated a study in the area of food safety culture with the Defense Ministry of the Brazilian government. This year the "Operation Weak Meat" was published in the media causing huge social and economic impacts demonstrating the importance of risk communication, that made us reflect on social risk management. Åsa Boholm (2003) writes that social relations, power relations and hierarchies, beliefs, confidence in institutions and science, knowledge, experience, discourses, practices and collective memories shape the notions of risk or safety.