Risk assessment

Slovak term: Slovenský termín

1. A process which estimates the likelihood that exposed people may have health effects. The four steps of a risk assessment are: hazard identification (Can this substance damage health?); dose-response assessment (What dose causes what effect?); exposure assessment (How and how much do people contact it?); and risk characterization (combining the other three steps to characterize risk and describe the limitations and uncertainties). Source: Oregon State University
2. For the purposes of the Water Safety Plan Manual: Step by step risk management for drinking-water suppliers, risk assessment has the same meaning as hazard analysis (WHO/IWA 2009).
3. A process intended to calculate or estimate the risk to a given target organism, system, or (sub)population, including the identification of attendant uncertainties, following exposure to a particular agent, taking into account the inherent characteristics of the agent of concern as well as the characteristics of the specific target system (WHO 2004).
4. The overall process of using available information to predict how often hazards or specified events may occur (likelihood) and the magnitude of their consequences (adapted from Standards Australia/Standard New Zealand 4360:1999).

Explanation

The risk assessment process includes four steps: hazard identification, hazard characterization (related term: Dose–response assessment), exposure assessment, and risk characterization. It is the first component in a risk analysis process.

Example

"Sound scientific risk assessment should be the guiding principle for policy development, and for prioritizing and implementing risk management measures and intervention strategies to reduce or prevent human exposure to environmental hazards, and thus reduce the burden of disease, improve public health and contribute to sustainable development of societies."

“In most cases, the concentration of chemical contaminants will be below drinking-water guidelines. As long as care is taken in their application, the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality can provide a starting point for deriving values that could be used to make a preliminary risk assessment under specific circumstances. These guideline values relate, in most cases, to lifetime exposure following consumption of 2 litres of drinking-water per day."

References

• WHO/IWA (2009) Water Safety Plan Manual: Step by step risk management for drinking-water suppliers
• WHO (2004) IPCS Risk Assessment Terminology
• WHO (2003) Health Risks in Aquifer Recharge Using Reclaimed Water

Links

• WHO — The Health and Environment Lexicon
• WHO (2001) Water Quality: Guidelines, Standards and Health: assessment of risk and risk management for water-related infectious disease
• WHO (2006) Guidelines for drinking-water quality , 3rd ed
• WHO (2004) Safe piped water: managing microbial water quality in piped distribution systems