Assessing the Risks

There are at least two senses in which risk assessment has been carried out subconsciously over a long period. Firstly, we all make assessments many times each day of the relative likelihood of undesirable consequences arising from our actions in particular circumstances. Whether to cross a road by the lights or take a chance in the traffic is one such. In making a judgement we evaluate the chance of injury and also its likely severity. 

The second sense of risk assessment is based on the employer s requirement under many sections of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to take reasonably practicable precautions in various areas to safeguard employees and other parties. This requires the making of a balanced judgement about the extent of a particular risk and its consequences against the time, trouble and cost of the steps needed to remove or reduce it. If the cost is grossly disproportionate , as a judge once put it, we are able to say that the steps are not reasonably practicable. Thus, in a very real sense, risk assessments have been carried out at least since 1974 in the UK. 

The difference between these assessments and those required by the MHSWR is that the significant results must be recorded by most employers, and information based on them is to be given to employees in a much more specific way than before. When the formal requirement first came into force at the beginning of 1993, those carrying out the statutory assessments found that some activities were being viewed afresh for the first time. The exercise was useful as it forced challenges to long-held assumptions about the safety of traditional work practices which often did not stand up to the scrutiny. 

---

The overall objective of research under way as of ca 1997 is to develop a system of sale by description for fine and medium wools whereby the buyer is presented only with measured data on the principal characteristics of the raw wool, as well as an assessment of the less important characteristics by an independent skilled appraiser (8). A scheme for assessing the risk of the presence of colored fiber content in greasy wool has been proposed which depends on production parameters and on the age and sex of the sheep (5). Instmmentation and computer algorithms for the measurement of style and handle... 

Assess the risk to health arising from work, and what preeautions are needed (see Figure 5.3). 

Assess the risk (e.g. identify the ehemieal and its hazardous properties, note the seale and prevailing eireumstanees) where neeessary, raise the alarm, evaeuate the area, obtain assistanee ete. 

The primary motivation of PSAs is to assess the risk of the plant to the public. The immediate purpose of the RSS was to support the Price-Anderson hearings on liability insurance (i.e., assess the financial exposure of a nuclear power reactor operator) a purpose which, even today, is beyond PSA technology. However, PSA is sufficiently precise to provide relative risk comparisons of reactor designs and sites. These uses of PSA were presented at the Indian Point hearings, and in defense of Shoreham. The PSAs for the high-population-zone plants (Limerick, Zion, and Indian Point) were prepared to show that specific features of these plants compensate for the higher population density relative to plants studied in the RSS. 

The investigating team was charged to realisticaHy assess the risk at individual installations before considering interactions that may arise from fires, explosions and the release of airborne toxic substances and other interactions between installations. 

Ashby, ]., Odum, J., Tin well, H., and l.efevre, P. A. (1997). Assessing the risks of adverse endo-crine-mediated effects Where to from here Reg. Toxicol. Pharmacol. 26, S0--9.T... 

Chapter 5, Quantitative and Qualitative Prediction of Human Error in Safety Assessments, describes a systematic process for identifying and assessing the risks from human error, together with techniques for quantifying human error probabilities. 

The purpose of this analysis was to assess the risk of operating Limerick Station, specifically with regard to its location near a high population density area. These risks were evaluated to determine whether they represent a disproportionately high segment of the total societal risk from postulated nuclear reactor incidents. 

To assess the risk involved in marketing chemicals and products, and establish their subsequent regulation by go eminent agencies ... 

Measurement of some of these parameters identifies the risk of a particular type of corrosion, for example pH measurements assess the risk of acid attack and redox potential measurements is used to assess the suitability of the soil for microbiological corrosion, a low redox potential indicates that the soil is anaerobic and favourable for the life cycle of anaerobic bacteria such as to sulphate-reducing bacteria. Other measurements are more general, resistivity measurements being the most widely quoted. However, as yet no single parameter has been identified which can confidently be expected to assess the corrosion risk of a given soil. It is therefore common practice to measure several parameters and make an assessment from the results. 

Molecular epidemiological studies to assess the risk associated with metabolic polymoiphisms for cancers of head-and-neck and the lung have shown that the overall... 

Posternak MA, Mueller TI Assessing the risks and benefits of benzodiazepines for anxiety disorders in patients with a history of substance abuse or dependence. Am J Addict 10 48-68, 2001... 

Example 57 The three files can be used to assess the risk structure for a given set of parameters and either four, five, or six repeat measurements that go into the mean. At the bottom, there is an indicator that shows whether the 95% confidence limits on the mean are both within the set limits ( YES ) or not ( NO ). Now, for an uncertainty in the drug/weight ratio of 1%, a weight variability of 2%, a measurement uncertainty of 0.4%, and fi 3.5% from the nearest specification limit, the ratio of OOS measurements associated with YES as opposed to those associated with NO was found to be 0 50 (n == 4), 11 39 (n = 5), respectively 24 26 (u = 6). This nicely illustrates that it is possible for a mean to be definitely inside some limit and to have individual measurements outside the same limit purely by chance. In a simulation on the basis of 1000 sets of n - 4 numbers e ND(0, 1), the Xmean. Sx, and CL(Xmean) were calculated, and the results were categorized according to the following criteria ... 

You must assess the risks from all siiistances hazardous to health - see Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations fCOSHm 2002. 

The safety of a diet could be defined as the overall risk-benefit of consuming that diet over a lifetime. This concept is not one that is applied in determining the safety of a chemical in food. Safety is almost invariably considered as the absence, or minimisation, of risk and not as the maximisation of benefit. Consequently, the scientific basis for regulating food chemicals is based on principles that were developed for assessing the risks posed by pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, and minimising these, rather than for maximising the benefits. 

An answer to the previous problems is provided by the conditional distribution approach, whereby at each node x of a grid the whole likelihood function of the unknown value p(x) is produced instead of a single estimated value p (x). This likelihood function allows derivation of different estimates corresponding to different estimation criteria (loss functions), and provides data values-dependent confidence intervals. Also this likelihood function can be used to assess the risks a and p associated with the decisions to clean or not. 

Reference materials for radioisotopes have mainly been used for purposes relating to nuclear and radiation safety. Historically, the development of such materials first arose from the need to assess the risk to human populations caused by worldwide contamination of food and the environment as a consequence of atomic bomb testing - particularly from bombs exploded in the atmosphere. Even now, although atmospheric testing ceased many years ago, the residues from these tests still remain the main source of radionuclides such as Cs and °Sr in the global environment (though locally, other sources may be more important in some countries). 

The definitions of method detection and quantification limits should be reliable and applicable to a variety of extraction procedures and analytical methods. The issue is of particular importance to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and also pesticide regulatory and health agencies around the world in risk assessment. The critical question central to risk assessment is assessing the risk posed to a human being from the consumption of foods treated with pesticides, when the amount of the residue present in the food product is reported nondetect (ND) or no detectable residues . 

It is of interest in a reservoir simulation study to compute future production levels of the history matched reservoir under alternative depletion plans. In addition, the sensitivity of the anticipated performance to different reservoir descriptions is also evaluated. Such studies contribute towards assessing the risk associated with a particular depletion plan. 

Generally, the phenotype that predisposes an individual to an increased risk of skin cancer is red or blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. These characteristics are surrogate measure of the sensitivity of the skin to sun exposure and the tendency to develop nevi, freckles, and sunburns based on the skin type. Freckles, which may appear abruptly after the first high dose of UV radiation sun exposure, represent clones of mutated melanocytes, and their presence is associated with an increased risk of melanoma.12 The Fitzpatrick classification of skin type is used to determine the response pattern of the skin to UV radiation and assess the risk for melanoma. There are six Fitzpatrick skin types Type I skin always burns and never tans, type II skin burns easily and tans rarely, type III skin burns sometimes and tans usually, type IV skin burns rarely and always tans, type V skin always tans and is moderately pigmented (brown), and type VI skin always tans and is darkly pigmented (black). Fitzpatrick I and II skin types are commonly affected by NMSC and MM. The susceptibility to skin cancer, both NMSC and MM, is related to the melanin content of the skin and the skin s response to UV radiation. 

Exposures of Children. Children will be exposed to americium in the same manner as adults in the general population (i. e., ingestion of food and water and inhalation of air). Americium is potentially found at hazardous waste sites at elevated levels. Since children may have oral exposure to soil through hand-to-mouth activity, bioavailability studies of americium in soil via the oral route may be useful to assess the risk of this type of exposure. 

Analytical chemistry is a critical component of worker safety, re-entry, and other related studies intended to assess the risk to humans during and subsequent to pesticide applications. The analytical aspect takes on added significance when such studies are intended for submission to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and/or other regulatory authorities and are thus required to be conducted according to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) Standards, or their equivalent. This presentation will address test, control, and reference substance characterization, use-dilution (tank mix) verification, and specimen (exposure matrix sample) analyses from the perspective of GLP Standards requirements. 

Abstract Chemicals are part of different daily products due to the characteristics that they provide to them. However, their release into the environment during the end of the product s life can affect harmfully the environment and the citizens. The worldwide transport of these chemicals at a global scale increases this negative potential effect. In this sense, initiatives such as the RISKCYCLE project (risk-based management of chemicals and products in a circular economy at a global scale) are trying to assess the risks of these substances in a circular economy. 

This book includes the results of a Coordination Action funded by the European Union called RISKCYCLE (risk-based management of chemicals and products in a circular economy at a global scale). This project (n. 226552) started the 1st of September of 2009 and ended on the 31st of August 2012. Its main objective was to establish and coordinate a global network of European and international experts and stakeholders from worldwide countries (e.g., European countries, China, India, Brazil, Vietnam) to assess the risks of hazardous chemicals and additives contained in different daily products. 

---