Risk assessments public safety

Health and Safety Executive, Five Steps to Risk Assessment, publication no. 1NDG163, HSE Books, Sudbury (1998)... 

Joseph F. Louvar retired as director of BASF s Chemical Engineering Department to become a professor at Wayne State University, specializing in chemical process safety, risk assessment, and the design of experiments. He has authored many publications on process safety and chairs the Undergraduate Education Committee of the CCPS. 

The primary document outlining risk assessment methods in the U.S. Department of Defense is a Military Standard, Ref. 39. This document requires a well-documented system safety program, based on risk assessment methods to be included in all new Department of Defense systems and facilities. Hazards analyses of the systems are mandated by this publication. 

Island/Thurrock Area, HMSO, London, 1978. Rasmussen, Reactor Safety Study An Assessment of Accident Risk in U. S. Commercial Nuclear Power Plants, WASH-1400 NUREG 75/014, Washington, D.C., 1975. Rijnmond Public Authority, A Risk Analysis of 6 Potentially Hazardous Industrial Objects in the Rijnmond Area—A Pilot Study, D. Reidel, Boston, 1982. Considine, The Assessment of Individual and Societal Risks, SRD Report R-310, Safety and Reliability Directorate, UKAEA, Warrington, 1984. Baybutt, Uncertainty in Risk Analysis, Conference on Mathematics in Major Accident Risk Assessment, University of Oxford, U.K., 1986. 

In 1993, the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) published Guidelines for Safe Automation of Chemical Processes (referred to henceforth as Safe Automation). Safe Automation provides guidelines for the application of automation systems used to control and shut down chemical and petrochemical processes. The popularity of one of the hazard and risk analysis methods presented in Safe Automation led to the publication of the 2001 Concept Series book from CCPS, Layer of Protection Analysis A Simplified Risk Assessment Approach. This method builds upon traditional process hazards analysis techniques. It uses a semiquantitative approach to define the required performance for each identified protective system. 

William R. Rhyne received a B.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee and M.S. and D.Sc. degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Virginia. Dr. Rhyne is currently an independent consultant and earlier cofounded H R Technical Associates, Inc., where he remains a member of the board of directors. He has extensive experience in risk and safety analyses associated with nuclear and chemical processes and with the transport of hazardous nuclear materials and chemicals. From 1984 to 1987, he was the project manager and principal investigator for a probabilistic accident analysis of transporting obsolete chemical munitions. Dr. Rhyne has authored or coauthored numerous publications and reports in nuclear and chemical safety and risk analysis areas and is author of the book Hazardous Materials Transportation Risk Analysis Quantitative Approaches for Truck and Train. He is a former member of the NRC Transportation Research Board Hazardous Materials Committee, the Society for Risk Assessment, the American Nuclear... 

The Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) deals with questions concerning emerging or newly identified risks, and broad, complex, or mulfidisciplinary issues requiring a comprehensive assessment of risks to consumer safety or public health, and related issues not covered by other community risk assessment bodies (EU 2006f). 

Apart from changing the definition of a medicinal product, the definition of risks related to use of the medicinal product has also been changed. The definition now has four components - in addition to the current definition which defines risk to public health in terms of the quality, safety and efficacy of the product, the revised legislation requires an assessment of any undesirable effects on the environment from use of the product. 

In the case of biological contamination, the identification of risk became obvious by experience, the risk assessment was made unambiguous by epidemiology, and the immediate and obvious effectiveness of the risk management decisions demonstrated their wisdom in the absence of elegant quantitative risk extrapolation models and projections of costs per case averted. Costs of water treatment and distribution became trivial relative to almost all other essential commodities, and in the public expectation the biological safety of drinking water became axiomatic. 

The Phase 1 quantitative risk assessment for Pueblo and several other stockpile sites with assembled chemical munitions completed several years ago showed that the stockpile at Pueblo presents risk to public health several orders of magnitude lower than any other site. This is because it contains only mustard agent, which is less volatile than other agents, and therefore would not be carried very far in the event of a fire or explosion. Nevertheless, the Army has undertaken several risk and safety assessments to meet the legislative requirement that the technology chosen for Pueblo be as safe as or safer than the baseline system. The committee believes that the incineration technologies under consideration will have very low risk and will meet reasonable interpretations of safety criteria, even if the actual risk numbers marginally exceed the baseline criteria. 

Risk assessment An evaluation of the potential impacts of a chemical or physical hazard on human health or the environment. A risk assessment is the first step in managing and minimizing risks. Risk assessments often include identifying human health or environmental threats, possible exposure routes (e.g. inhalation, digestion, or contact with skin), the likely duration of any exposure, and the individuals that are at risk (e.g. workers, the general public, or both). A risk assessment may also involve defining the probability of an adverse effect and establishing safety limits based on health standards. 

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