MANAGING RISK—MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT SAFETY

Managing Risk—Making Decisions About Safety Presents an introduction to the process of risk management and how individual scientists or regulatory agencies decide what is safe. ... 

MANAGING RISK—MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT SAFETY... 

Managing Risk Making Decisions about Safety Presents an introduction to the process... 

From a business perspective, application of risk concepts involve two main elements. One is risk assessment. The other is risk management. Risk assessment involves methods that identify business risks. Among the business risks are safety and health risks for employees, customers, and the public. There are also risks to the equipment, property, and financial condition of a business. Risk management involves evaluating identified risks and making decisions about how to handle them from a business perspective. 

The willingness to pay approach to establishing decision criteria assumes that it is only the risk versus cost equation that matters. In practice, people have other concerns as well. For example, there is a question of involvement in process - have the kind of people affected by risk been involved in making decisions about it Is it really the level of risk that worries people, or is it concern about the competence of the industry in managing safety Is it the perceived motivation for decisions (whether taken by industry or by Government) that concerns people ... 

Planning and control strategies should be aimed at making decisions about such issues by management, rather than leaving them to site workers who will not normally be aware of all the constraints. For example, a subcontractor may attempt to put up ladders or a temporary scaffold to gain access to the outside of a structure, unaware that the spot chosen is on a major access route that happens to be quiet at the time. Third parties should not have to make decisions about ensuring their own safety they should be excluded from work areas where they may be at risk. 

Public support for the laboratory use of chemicals depends on compliance with regulatory laws as a joint responsibility of everyone who handles or makes decisions about chemicals, from shipping and receiving clerks to laboratory workers and managers, environmental health and safety staff, and institutional administrators. This shared responsibility is now a fact of laboratory work as inexorable as the properties of the chemicals that are being handled. The use of chemicals, like the use of automobiles or electricity, involves some irreducible risks. However, all three of these servants to humankind have demonstrated benefits that enormously outweigh their costs if they are handled sensibly." (p. ix)... 

Qualitative answers to one or more of these questions are often sufficient for making good decisions about the allocation of resources for safety improvements. But, as managers seek quantitative cost/benefit information upon which to base their decisions, they increasingly turn their attention to the use of quantitative risk analysis (QRA). 

The FDA s postmarketing surveillance of drug safety in FY 2003 includes a new database on prescribed drug use (with patient idenhhes removed). The agency uses this database of marketed drugs to "make risk assessments and decisions about the most appropriate way to manage any new risk or new perspective on a previously known... 

Establish communication channels to plant management about all events and activities that are safety-related. Ensure management has the information and risk awareness they need to make safe decisions about operations. 

Other social controls indirectly influence industrial safety performance, such as laws and norms for corporate governance that cause companies to inform shareholders and potential investors about corporate activities so they can make informed decisions about financial risks. If the activities are hazardous, these sources of financial support may need to be convinced that their financial risks are held to acceptable levels by evidence of effective safety management, which thereby makes it necessary for companies to develop and implement codes of conduct and safety management practices that adhere to industrial standards and comply with government regulations. ... 

In jurisdictions without a PEST system, the inspector really should only be called in at the point where the internal procedmes, such as referral of the issue to the health and safety committee, have not prodirced a result. Management m be imwilling to spend the money needed on risk controls, for example. It will be np to the inspector to make a decision about the employees concerns. If he or she finds in favom or partly in favour of the employees, an improvement, prohibition notice or similar then be issued. 

While NIOSH s Approaches to Safe Nanotechnology report does not provide mandated nanomaterial-specific recommendations for facility management, it does serve as one of the most tmsted information resources currently available to assist safety managers with making rational decisions about risk minimization in their respective facilities. 

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