Introduction to risk analysis
Flavie GOUTARD – UR AGIRs, CIRAD
goutard@[Link]
Risk Analysis training course
NIHE, Hanoi, Vietnam, 4-5 May 2016
Overview
General concepts
Areas of application of Risk Analysis
Approaches to Risk Assessment
Public health scenarios
General concepts
Risk
Hazard
Zero-risk approach
Risk analysis
General concepts: Risk
Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English
A situation involving exposure to danger
The possibility that something unpleasant will happen
Society for Risk Analysis [Link]
The potential for realization of unwanted, adverse consequences
to human life, health, property, or the environment; estimation
of risk is usually based on the expected value of the conditional
probability of the event occuring times the consequence of the
event given that it has occured.
General concepts: Risk
Chance of encountering some form of harm, loss
or damage
Probability of something happening, something going
wrong, and, if it does happen, the resulting
consequences
Requires the existence of a hazard
Different possible outcomes, one or more of
these outcomes are unwanted
General concepts
Hazard
A biological, chemical or physical agent in, or condition
of, food with the potential to cause an adverse health
effect (Codex Alimentarius Commission)
A condition or physical situation with a potential for
undesirable consequence (Society for Risk Analysis)
General concepts
Hazard → something with the potential to cause
harm
Risk → the likelihood of harm, usually estimated
as the combination of likelihood and
consequence of a specified hazard being
realized.
No hazard – no risk!
General concepts: Risk analysis
Society for Risk Analysis [Link]
A detailed examination including risk assessment, risk
evaluation, and risk management alternatives,
performed to understand the nature of unwanted,
negative consequences to human life, health,
property, or the environment; an analytical process to
provide information regarding undesirable events; the
process of quantification of the probabilities and
expected consequences for identified risks.
General concepts: Risk analysis
A process undertaken to deal with matters which pose a
potential danger, managed according to certain standard
procedure and that involves:
Hazard Identification
Risk Assessment
Risk Management
Risk Communication
Systematic approach to deal with risks
General concepts: Risk analysis
Different skills are required:
Epidemiologists
Virologists, microbiologists
Experts on climatology, entomogly, ornithology
Environmental scientists,
Industry technologists,
Mathematicians, statisticians
Information scientists
Economists
Multidisciplinary approach within a
project team
General concepts: Risk analysis
Risk analysis assists the decision maker:
What can go wrong?
How likely is it to go wrong?
What are the consequences of it going wrong?
What can be done to reduce the likelihood of it
going wrong?
General concepts: Why no zero risk
approach?
Zero-risk is the ideal that we should try to achieve
Appealing but often not possible or not
desirable (unjustifiable amounts of resources needed).
In human health, zero-risk approaches may
result in excessively stringent measures and may have
undesirable effects
Alternative: trying to determine a level of practical
achievable control of risk.
General concepts: Risk analysis
components
1. Hazard identification
2. Risk assessment
3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
Risk analysis
General concepts: risk analysis
components
Hazard Identification:
Initial step of the risk analysis: Identification of the
hazard (something potentially harmful).
In some cases the step of hazard identification is
incorporated within the risk assessment
1. Hazard identification
2. Risk assessment
3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
General concepts: Risk analysis
components
Risk Assessment: process of evaluating the risk resulting
from a hazard
The evaluation of the likelihood and the biological and
economic consequences of entry, establishment, or spread of
a pathogenic agent within the population of interest
• Based on how the risk estimate is
presented: 1. Hazard identification
Qualitatively: the evaluated
risk is described in words. The 2. Risk assessment
estimate of risk is ranked or 3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
separated into descriptive
categories.
Quantitatively: the evaluated risk is
estimated numerically; numerical
expressions of risk are provided.
General concepts: Risk analysis
components
Risk Management:
Based on the results of the risk assessment and the
judgement of the ‘risk managers’ decisions are taken and
policy is formulated.
Risk management is the process of weighting policy
alternatives in consultation with all interested parties
considering risk assessment and other factors.
1. Hazard identification
→ potential benefits? 2. Risk assessment
→ implementing sanitary measures?
3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
General concepts: Risk analysis
components
Risk Management:
Effect of consequences:
- assessed risk low + severe consequence
= usually unacceptable (not always)
- assessed risk high + trivial consequence
= usually acceptable (not always)
1. Hazard identification
Level of acceptable risk? 2. Risk assessment
3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
General concepts: Risk analysis
components
Risk communication:
Information exchange between risk assessors, risk
managers and those affected by both the risk and the
decisions taken (stakeholders) before the final policy
decisions are taken.
1. Hazard identification
Risk assessment is only part of
the whole process of risk analysis 2. Risk assessment
which also includes hazard
identification, risk management and 3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
risk communication!
Risk Analysis
1. Hazard identification
Purely scientific
2. Risk assessment
3. Risk management 4. Risk communication
Inclusion of economic
and political interests The most important
Risk analysis
Areas of application
Food safety
Maarten J. Nauta, Wilma F. Jacobs-Reitsma, Arie H.
Havelaar. A Risk Assessment Model for
Campylobacter in Broiler Meat. Risk Analysis
Fosse J., Seegers H., Magras C. Foodborne
zoonoses due to meat: a quantitative approach
for a comparative risk assessment applied to pig
slaughtering in Europe. Vet. Res. (2008) 39:01
Areas of Application
Animal Health and Trade
Martinez-Lopez B., Perez A.M., De la Torre A.,
Sanchez-Vizcaino Rodriguez J.M. Quantitative risk
assessment of foot-and-mouth disease
introduction into Spain via importation of live
animals. Prev. Vet. Med 86 (2008) 43-56.
Areas of Application
Public Health
Walter Dowdle, Harrie van der Avoort, Esther de
Gourville, Francis Delpeyroux, Jagadish Desphande,
Tapani Hovi, Javier Martin, Mark Pallansch, Olen Kew,
Chris Wolff (2006) Containment of Polioviruses
after eradication and OPV cessation:
Characterizing Risks to Improve Management
Risk Analysis 26 (6), 1449-1469.
Areas of Application
Environmental impact
Christopher Snary (2002) Health Risk Assessment
for Planned Waste Incinerators: Getting the
Right Science and the Science Right. Risk Analysis
22 (6), 1095-1105.
Agriculture
Olurominiyi O. Ibitayo (2006) Egyptian Farmers’
Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Agricultural
Pesticides: Implications for Pesticide Risk
Communication Risk Analysis 26 (4), 989-995.
Areas of Application
Engineering
Alessandro Mazzola (2000) A Probabilistic Methodology
for the Assessment of Safety from Dropped Loads in
Offshore Engineering Risk Analysis 20 (3), 327-338.
Financial Management
Howard C. Kunreuther, Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer (2003)
The Financiel Management of Catastrophic Flood
Risks in Emerging-Economy Countries Risk Analysis
23 (3), 627-639.
Areas of Application
Security against terrorism
Henry H. Willis (2007) Guiding Resource
Allocations Based on Terrorism Risk Risk Analysis
27 (3), 597-606.
….
Applications in Animal Health
Animal-related trade
Food safety
Others:
Risk based surveillance
Veterinary biologicals (vaccines, GMOs)
Applications in Animal Health: animal related
trade
WTO Agreement on Application of Sanitary and
Phytosanitary Measures (SPS agreement):
The SPS Agreement is a multilateral framework consisting of rules and
disciplines intended to achieve its two-fold objective of ensuring
Members’ rights to protect health, while aiming to prevent the
imposition of arbitrary or unjustified trade barriers.
WTO: [Link]
SPS agreement:
[Link]
[Link]
[Link]
Codex, OIE, IPPC
[Link]
p1_e.htm
Applications in Animal Health
WTO SPS agreement
Scientific basis → regionalisation, risk analysis
Trust → harmonization, equivalence,
transparency
OIE International Animal and Aquatic
Animal Health Code
Former List A and B diseases
Guidelines for
Risk analysis
Regionalization
Surveillance
Evaluation of veterinary services
Applications in Animal Health
Risk analysis in food safety
International standard
FAO/WHO Codex alimentarius
Responsible for risk assessment
European Food Safety Authority
Example problems
BSE
Salmonella
Campylobacter
Dioxin
Antibiotic resistance
Applications in Animal Health
Risk analysis in other animal-related
areas
Surveillance: Optimised decision
making in animal disease control
National
Individual farm
Risk-based surveillance
Risk-based ≠ targeted: a special type of risk-based surveillance design
(sampling of high risk strata
Stärk et al., 2006
Applications in Animal Health:
International trade:
Risk of introduction of BSE into Sweden by
import of cattle from the UK
Global trade in ornemental fish
Risk of transmission of FMD, bluetongue and
vesicular stomatitis by embryos originating
from an area in South America
Disease spread within a country through
‘neighborhood infections’
Prioritization of pathogens for surveillance
Applications in Public Health
Food standards & safety issues:
Application of Risk Analysis to Food Standards
Issues, a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation,
Geneva, Switzerland, 13–17 March 1995 2
Chemical hazards:
WHO Human Health Risk Assessment Toolkit:
Chemical Hazards
International Health Regulation (2005)
Rapid risk assessment of acute public health
risks – WHO/HSE/GAR/ARO/2012
Applications in Public Health: Food
safety
International standard
FAO/WHO Codex alimentarius
Food standards & safety issues:
Recommendations include:
i) definitions of risk analysis terms,
ii) principles for risk assessment methods
iii) recommendations to promote the
implementation of harmonized and
transparent risk assessment methods.
Codex committees:
Examples:
•BSE
•Salmonella
•Campylobacter
•Dioxin
•Antibiotic resistance
Applications in Public Health: Chemical
hazards
Users:
public health and environmental professionals,
regulators, industrial managers and other
decision-makers
Purpose:
Provide guidance to identify, acquire and
use the information needed to assess
chemical hazards, exposures and the
corresponding health risks at local and/or
national levels.
Examples:
Drinking water
Respirable particulate Matter (PM10)
Pesticides
Applications in Public Health:IHR 2005
The International Health Regulations
(2005) IHR - are an international
agreement that is legally binding on
194 countries (States Parties),
including all WHO Member States
Purposes:
To prevent, protect, and provide a public
health response to the international
threat and spread of diseases.
To avoid unnecessary disruption of
international travel and trade
- From control of borders to containment at source
- From diseases list to all threats
- From preset measures to adapted and real time response
40
Decision instrument (Annex 2) of IHR
(2005)
for Assessment and Notification
4 diseases that shall be notified polio
(wild-type polio virus), smallpox,
human influenza new subtype, SARS.
Disease that shall always lead to
utilization of the algorithm: cholera,
pneumonic plague, yellow fever, VHF
(Ebola, Lassa, Marburg), WNF,
others;.
Q1: public health impact serious?
Q2: unusual or unexpected?
Q3: risk of international spread?
Q4: risk of travel/trade restriction?
Insufficient information: reassess
Rapid risk assessment of acute public
health risks
To proposed structured steps in order to
apply the Annex 2 decision instruments of
the IHR
Purpose:
To reduce or prevent disease in affected
populations and reduces negative social
and economic consequences.
Defensible decision-making
Implementation of appropriate and timely control measures
More effective operational communication
More effective risk communication
Improved preparedness
Conclusion
Introduction to risk analysis
Flavie GOUTARD – UR AGIRs, CIRAD
goutard@[Link]
Risk Analysis training course
NIHE, Hanoi, Vietnam, 4-5 May 2016