Occupational safety, risk assessment

Many authors (Kentel and Aral, 2004, Faber and Stewart, 2003, Nilsen and Aven, 2003, Tixier et al., 2002, Pender, 2001, Harms-Ringdahl, 2001, Wang and Ruxton, 1997) have discussed the limitations of traditional semi-quantitative methods for Occupational Safety Risk Assessment (OSRA) and state that the kinds of uncertainties include data scarce or incomplete, measurement error, data obtained from expert judgment, or subjective interpretation of available information which cannot be treated solely by traditional statistical or probabilistic methods. So, probabilistic OSRA... 

Pinto, A. 2014. Qram a Qualitative Occupational Safety Risk Assessment Model for the construction industry that incorporate uncertainties by the use of fuzzy sets. Sc ety Science, 63, 57-76. 

From the Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety, risk assessment is a process to identify hazards, analyze or evaluate the risk associate with those hazards, and determine appropriate ways to eliminate or control hazards. 

The approach to developing metrics for process safety is analogous to those that might be used to assess Occupational Exposure risk. One can cite as well several indices that have been developed as metrics for estimating and ranking the safety of a given process or chemical reaction, such as the DOW fire and explosion index,the Stoessel index ° for hazard assessment and classification of chemical reactions, the Inherent Safety Index, the Prototype Index for Inherent Safety, amongst others. ... 

Another interesting aspect of differences in the documentation is the use of uncertainty or safety factors. These are commonly used in food safety and environmental risk assessment, but customarily not used when deriving occupational exposure limits. A study of the margins of safety used in OELs comprising 14 substances and 45 OELs and the documentation for these only found four instances where explicit safety or uncertainty factors had been used (Schenk, 2010). Two of these instances concerned p-dichlorobenzene making this substance rather unique. The documentations in question are from the EU and France. The magnitude of the uncertainty factors differs between them the EU applied a factor of 10 and France a factor of hundred. But this is again explainable by the different severity of the concluded critical effects (Table 9.6). 

Occupational and consumer protection are seen as technical exercises in France. The National Institute of Research and Security (INRS) and the Institute for the Industrial Environment and Safety (INERIS) may be aptly described as state apparatus to control costs to the state of poor regulation. INERIS plays little part in the development of risk-reduction strategies (RRS) because consumer protection and environmental protection follow directly from the risk assessment process. INERIS feeds relevant information directly to the MEDD. Because MESA acts only as a statistical and economic branch of occupational protection, responsibility for the development of occupational RRS is left to the INRS. 

OCCUPATIONAL AND RESIDENTIAL RISK ASSESSMENT 371 AOELs Versus MOEs 371 Route Considerations 372 Uncertainty and Safety Factor Selection 372 Aggregation and Cumulative Risk Assessment 372 CO-OPERATIVE REGULATORY ACTIVITIES 373 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 374 Terminology 374 Framework 374 Data Requirements 374 Methodological Guidance 375 Development and Utility of Databases 375 Modeling Initiatives 375 Data Analysis 375 Metric Selection 376 Research Needs 376 Exposure Mitigation 376 Risk Assessment 376 REFERENCES 376... 

There are differences as to how safety factors greater than 100 are applied to risk assessment for workers. Some regulatory authorities (e.g. Canada) apply additional uncertainty and safety factors when conducting occupational risk assessments. Other jurisdictions (e.g. the USA) do not. Such divergent approaches can lead to different risk assessment outcomes. Consistent approaches to application of uncertainty and safety factors would greatly facilitate harmonization. 

Prior to choosing a BSC for any pharmaceutical manufacturing or pharmacy compounding operation, all risks should be assessed by a qualified process engineer, safety officer, or industrial hygienist, ensuring that the equipment meets occupational safety as well as process requirements. 

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