Risk factors community issues

In their review, Pinto et al. (2011) listed several causes for poor safety performance in the constmction industry. These include poor safely organization, lack of coordination at shared workplaces, tight schedules and economic pressure, constantly changing work environments, specialization in certain tasks, poor safety awareness among top management and project managers, poor involvement of workers in safety matters, lack of and/or inadequate prevention/protection equipment, and lack of proper communication procedures. They also point out that company size seems to affect safety performance, as smaller companies tend to have limited resources for health and safety issues (2011). In Nordic countries, additional threats, such as changing environmental conditions, slipperiness, darkness and cold must all be seen as additional risk factors (McFadden and Bennett 1991 Risikko 2009). 

It is important that both the qualitative and quantitative characterization be clearly communicated to the risk manager. The qualitative characterization includes the quality of the database, along with strengths and weaknesses, for both health and exposure evaluations the relevance of the database to humans the assumptions and judgements that were made in the evaluation and the level of confidence in the overall characterization. The quantitative characterization also includes information on the range of effective exposure levels, dose-response estimates (including the uncertainty factors applied), and the population exposure estimates. Kimmel et al. (2006) reviewed many of the components of the risk characterization for reproductive and developmental effects and provided a comprehensive list of issues to be considered for each of the components of the risk assessment. 

Future research will address these questions and our understanding of the influence of various factors on the risk communication process will undoubtedly increase. In addition, innovative ways to present risk messages will certainly be developed. Flowever, some fundamental issues with respect to the goals of risk communication will likely remain. 

These are issues to which we will return in our discussion in the final chapter of this book, but it is sufficient to note that the existence of business networks for production, supply and demand do not automatically lend themselves to a role in enhancing health and safety - indeed in some cases they owe their existence to attempts by business organisations to off-load responsibilities for health and safety. Furthermore, current research findings on risk communication in relation to chemical hazards suggest that user s understanding and use of safety information is the result of a more complex set of factors than merely the failure to supply the information in the first place. ... 

While the issues discussed thus far probably contribute to the fact that prevention has not reduced the harm caused by drug abuse, these issues do not fully explain the situation. At the state and community levels, well-intentioned and hardworking people are often able to overcome federal ineptitude. Furthermore, I have personally seen many state prevention systems and community-based organizations doing an exemplary job of using a risk and protective framework to design and implement evidence-based prevention programs. There must be other factors that explain the failure of substance abuse prevention. 

Sustainable development and the multidisciplinary use of the underground are also debated within the electives related to tunnelling and geo-risk management. The speeifieity of these courses is to help to raise awareness among students of any possible ethical, social, environmental, aesthetic, economic and legal implications of their work, to which they will act appropriately. The importance of the human factor and a clear communication line between all parties involved in a construction project is stressed. Site visits also provide the opportunity to introduce non technical issues, to students not willing to follow a full course on the topic. 

The primary goal of the media in risk communication is alerting the public to a threat. Rarely does lack of toxicity capture the attention of the public. Instead, cause for concern might capture listeners or readers. Therefore, the media will tend to focus on the pessimistic or worst-case evaluation of a risk issue. Using the factors discussed earlier in this chapter, the media will tend to focus on the following ... 

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