Surveys as a valid tool for assessing food safety knowledge amongst pregnant women in high-income countries: a rapid review.

Pregnancy, being a vulnerable period, is the time when woman are most motivated to change their diet and lifestyle. Ensuring food safety during this susceptible time of life is essential for avoiding the related risks. Although a wealth of recommendations and guidelines have been issued for for pregnant women, further evidence is required regarding their effectiveness in implementing the knowledge and changing behaviour on food safety topics are needed. Surveys are often used as a research tool to investigate knowledge and awareness amongst pregnant women. Our main aim is to analyse and describe the results of an ad hoc research approach ad hoc developed to characterise the main features of surveys identified in the PubMed database. The three major food safety issues have been examined- microbiological, chemical and nutritional- were analysed. We have identified eight main key features to provide a summary of the evidence with a transparent and reproducible methodology. Our results help summarise the knowledge on the features of for pregnant women, by focusing on high-income countries over the last five years. We observed a high level of heterogeneity and methodological variability in food safety surveys. This is a novel approach that could be used to analyse surveys utilising a robust methodology. The outcomes are useful for guiding new survey design methodology and/or the modification existing surveys. Our findings could help to fill knowledge gaps by improving the use of innovative strategies for recommendations and guidelines on food safety for pregnant women. Non-high-income countries deserve separate and more comprehensive consideration.