Introduction: Heavy metals naturally present in the soil, land and water have been investigated for years in order to know the effects they generate on the health of humans and animals. Arsenic can concentrate in foods such as shellfish and is part of chemical products such as insecticides, reaching the general population through contaminated food, water and soil, producing effects on health, the economy and public welfare. Objective: To evaluate the environmental, economic and public health impact generated by arsenic from a scoping review of the literature from 2011 to 2021. Materials and methods: a review of 206 scientific articles was carried out, using health descriptors using MeSH terms in the Springer Nature Journals, ScienceDirect and Scopus databases, from the last 10 years since their publication, in English. and Spanish, national and international. Results: arsenic has a direct impact on the microbial properties of the soil, generates ecotoxicity and is the determining factor (in contaminated soil or irrigated with contaminated water) to establish the low growth of plants and lichens, as well as other types of elements of contamination. human consumption. Its health effects are related to chronic hydroasernicism, arsenicosis, carcinogenic effects and chronic renal failure, and in children it triggers effects on IQ during development. The economic problem resulting from the high concentrations of arsenic, on the one hand, affects the farmer, since it has been shown that its presence in crops generates lower plant growth and slower, smaller and poorer quality plantings that do not allow the producer to recover the inverted; and it has an impact on health, by withdrawing a large number of people from the labor force due to the lack of medical conditions to work. Conclusion: the need to explore in Colombia the effects of arsenic on the economy, the environment and public health is evident and not only direct efforts to concentration measurements that do not complete the research cycle, being a priority to evaluate the consequences of high concentrations. of this metal.
