Limeira is a Brazilian municipality with 276,000 inhabitants and human development index of 0.775, where is located an important jewelry and fashion jewelry local productive arrangement (LPA). Part of this LPA encompasses precarious and outsourcing informal home practices, which exposes the working families to potentially toxic elements (EPTs: Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Sn, and In). The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of diseases/health endpoints, which can be related to EPTs exposure, between informal home workers and their relatives, and controls. A cross-sectional study was carried out with exposed group (outsourcing informal home workers and their families, 29 families), and control group (neighbors who did not work with EPTs exposure, 23 families), totaling 254 individuals. A questionnaire on referred diseases, adapted from the household survey of the Brazilian National Cancer Institute, was applied, in order to explore the health perception and referred diseases in this population. For the data analysis, chi-square and Fisher tests were applied (p<0.05). Both exposed and control groups were similar for age, schooling, medication and supplements use, and consumption of alcohol and tobacco (p>0.05). The groups were then categorized according to age (adults and elderly) and women of childbearing age (10 to 49 years). It was observed a higher prevalence of neurological (47.3%), psychiatric (26.4%) and respiratory (34%) diseases in the exposed group, but the statistical differences were not significant. In addition, a statically significant higher prevalence of preterm birth was found for exposed women (p=0.045). The results of this study emphasize the importance of understanding the exposome of the population. Occupational exposure scenarios inside homes should be taken into account to implement public policies to protect the population, especially child-bearing age women. This study was funded by FAPESP (Grant 2016/11087-8) and CAPES.
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