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Risk Assessment

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Encyclopedia of Public Health
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Definition

A risk assessment is a systematic procedure to identify potential health hazards , evaluate the extent of exposure and to establish the need for, and effectiveness of existing control measures. It is an organized look at what, in work activities and the workplace, can cause harm to employees. In the context of occupational health, risk assessment is the process of quantifying the probability of a harmful effect to individuals or populations from certain activities at the workplace .

Basic Characteristics

Determination of Risk

The risk assessment is a part of four interrelated activities including risk research, risk management and risk communication. The concept of the risk assessment is not new â€“ we make decisions about risks in our daily lives. What is new is the shift from concern for immediate hazards with readily discernable linkages between a specific hazardous situation and an adverse outcome to situations where there are only...

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References

  1. Dobbins TA, Simpson JM, Oldenburg B, Owen NB, Harris D (1998). Who comes to a workplace health risk assessment? Int J Behav Med 5:323–334

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  2. Donoghue AM (2001) The design of hazard risk assessment matrices for ranking occupational health risks and their application in mining and minerals processing. Occup Med 51:118–123

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  3. McClellan RO (1998) Risk Assessment. In: Rom W (ed) Environmental & Occupational Medicine, 3rd edn. Lippincott – Raven, Philadelphia, pp 1691–1708

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  4. McDonald MA, Loomis D, Kucera KL, Lipscomb HJ (2004) Use of qualitative methods to map job tasks and exposures to occupational hazards for commercial fishermen. Am J Ind Med 46:23–31

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Borjanović, S. (2008). Risk Assessment . In: Kirch, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Public Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5614-7_3032

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5614-7_3032

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-5613-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-5614-7

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