Risk management definitions

The Office of Hazards Materials Safety in the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) in the U.S. Department of Transportation (2005), has issued Risk Management Definitions from which the following definition is taken. 

Process definition and design criteria Process and equipment design Company memory (management information) Documentation of risk management decisions Protective systems Normal and upset conditions Chemical and occupational health hazards... 

Not surprisingly, there is no agreed definition of the risk management process. The associated issues and interactions can be very complex, and much effort continues to go into defining how they can be characterised. It is however possible to sketch the overall process into a coherent architecture, based on the principles of ... 

The link between the ecological/ecotoxicological risk assessment and the risk management frameworks is demonstrated. The ecological risk assessment consists of seven interactive elements (Fig. 17). The quantitative and descriptive science used to conduct ERA (Table 5) does not answer, in a direct way, the question of what should be done to manage the risk. Science determines adversity, but the public determines acceptability (Fig. 18). But acceptable risk is a highly subjective and relative term. It is time and space-specific and depends upon definitions of quality of life and robustness of the environment. 

Process Knowledge and Documentation—The main features here are process definition and design criteria, process and equipment design, company memory (management information), documentation of risk management decisions, protective systems, normal and upset con-dtions, and chemical and occupational health hazards. 

Procedural controls, process controls, 98-99 Process controls, 96-100 active controls, 98 inherently safer approach, 97 mitigation techniques, 99 passive controls, 97-98 procedural controls, 98-99 safe operating limits, 99-100 Process definition, documentation, 102-104 Process design, documentation, 105 Process hazard analysis (PHA) risk assessment, 92-93 screening methods, 63 Process risk management decisions, documentation, 105-106... 

Medication errors have been defined in many ways, depending on research methodologies, incident reporting systems, risk management, or total quality improvement systems. USP uses the broad definition of medication error from the NCC MERP ... 

If the assessment is to be probabilistic, the risk assessor and risk manager should consider together how this influences the definition of the assessment endpoint. Suter (1998) suggests 5 questions for the risk assessor to ask the risk manager to help define the assessment endpoint ... 

Risk assessment is the definition of risks, potential risks, and the risk-benefit equations necessary for the regulation of toxic substances. Risk assessment is logically followed by risk communication and risk management. 

Ultimately, the risk characterization results in a statement of the potential susceptibility of children for specific effects from specific exposures to environmental agents. This statement forms the basis, together with other considerations, on which regulatory or management decisions will be made. Often, the risk manager is not a specialist in children s health thus, it is imperative that the risk characterization be clear, definitive, and unencumbered by scientific terminology that may be misunderstood or misinterpreted. The risk assessor must effectively communicate what is known, what is not known, and what is questionable, in order for the risk assessment to be appropriately factored into the overall risk management process. 

From scenario definition to uncertainty analysis communication with the risk managers... 

As discussed in Section 1.1, regulatory chemical risk management can be viewed as a process by which chemical risks are controlled so as to reach tolerable levels of risk. The research project takes its definition for chemical risk management from the European Commission [25] ... 

Identifying a hazard is only a small part of the risk assessment process. Hazard must be differentiated from risk. Assessing risk involves an analysis of the likelihood that adverse effects to human health or the environment after exposure to a chemical may occur. For risk management, exposure assessments therefore play equal (if not more) important parts as evaluations of hazard. The following sections discuss how toxicology, exposure assessments, and risk characterisations contribute to the central scientific definition of risk as probability versus consequence [93-95]. 

Risk management, in simplified terms, is the decision-making process by which risk assessment results are integrated with other information to arrive at decisions about the need for, method of, and extent of risk reduction. This definition covers many levels of decision-making. At one level, it deals with the question of what programs should be undertaken to reduce risk to the population of the country. 

Certain aspects of chemical science should be grasped before entering the domains of toxicology, risk assessment, and risk management. We need not dip into fundamental concepts and the lesson will be brief and of very limited scope. Many of the definitions and principles to be discussed are (or should be) well known by those who have passed through a high school chemistry course, even with relatively poor success, but we need to be reminded of them and keep them in mind, as matters of chemicals in the environment come under discussion later in the book. 

It is important to remember, as well, that most of the disputes that come to court in the area of risk management have no clearcut scientific solutions. These controversies arise at the frontiers of science where, almost by definition, there are no established or widely accepted answers to scientific questions. Moreover, disputes seldom come to court until they have matured in forums where the technical issues are thoroughly debated scientific advisory committees, administrative hearings, internal or external peer review, and pretrial negotiations. If technical conflicts persist after all these processes are exhausted, the reason very probably is that the matter in controversy cannot be settled by scientists according to purely scientific norms. 

---