Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONCYTEC) is acknowledged for PhD funding of Pedro Vásquez-Ocmín; Karine Leblanc for supporting in MS analyses.

Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONCYTEC) is acknowledged for PhD funding of Pedro Vásquez-Ocmín.

The authors thank the Consejo de Ciencia y Tecnología del Perú (CONCYTEC) (Council for science and technology of Peru) (299 - 2014 - FONDECYT) for the Ph.D. scholarship (PGVO). Authors are indebted to the communities cited in this work for their essential contribution in order to spread their ancestral knowledge in favor of science. We also appreciate the important collaboration of Lizardo Fachin Malaverri, Stéphanie Denis, Dennis del Castillo Torres and Juan Vásquez Briones

The Central Andes of Peru are a region of great concern regarding pesticide risk to the health of local communities. Therefore, we conducted an observational study to assess the level of pesticide contamination among Andean people. Analytical chemistry methods were used to measure the concentrations of 170 pesticide-related compounds in hair samples from 50 adult Andean subjects living in rural and urban areas. As part of the study, a questionnaire was administered to the subjects to collect information regarding factors that increase the risk of pesticide exposure. Our results indicate that Andean people are strongly exposed to agrochemicals, being contaminated with a wide array of pesticide-related compounds at high concentration levels. Multivariate analyses and geostatistical modeling identified sociodemographic factors associated with rurality and food origin that increase pesticide...