Risk assessment

Risk assessment is the systematic estimation of how likely a hazard is to cause harm and how severe its consequences may be. It informs decisions about whether and how to reduce exposure.

Hazard identification: The process of determining whether an agent, activity, or condition can cause harm. It establishes which harmful outcomes the assessment must evaluate.
Hazard: A source, condition, or activity with the potential to cause harm. Risk assessment starts by identifying what could cause harm, not by assuming harm will occur.
Environmental risk assessment: The evaluation of potential adverse effects of agents or activities on ecosystems and environmental resources. It applies assessment methods to ecological receptors and environmental exposure.
Risk management: The process of selecting and implementing actions to address risks. Assessment estimates risk; management uses that estimate to choose responses.
Exposure assessment: The estimation of how much, how often, and how long people or environments contact a hazard. Exposure determines whether a hazard can reach people or ecosystems, and at what level.
Risk: The possibility of harm, commonly described through its likelihood and consequences. It is the quantity an assessment estimates rather than the hazard itself.
Health risk assessment: The evaluation of potential adverse health effects from exposures to hazards. It focuses the assessment on effects in individuals and populations.
Risk communication: The exchange of information and views about risks among experts, authorities, and affected groups. Communicating findings is distinct from producing the assessment itself.
Dose–response assessment: The analysis of how the likelihood or severity of harm changes with the amount of exposure. It connects estimated exposure to the probability and severity of adverse effects.
Likelihood: The chance that an event or outcome will occur under specified conditions. It expresses the probability component of the assessment.

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