Suchergebnisse

Any practical process of risk ranking must group hazards into a manageable number of categories. Defining such categories requires value choices that can have important implications for the rankings that result. Most risk‐management organizations will find it useful to begin defining categories in terms of environmental loadings or initiating events. However, the resulting categories typically need to be modified in light of other considerations. Risk‐ranking projects can benefit from considering several alternative categorization strategies and drawing upon elements of each in developing their final categorization of risks. In principle, conducting multiple ranking exercises by using different categorizations could be interesting and useful. In practice, agencies are unlikely to have either the resources or patience to do this, but other groups in society might. Done well, such additional independent rankings could add valuable inputs to democratic risk‐management decision making.

"Nach dem Ende des Ost-West-Konflikts ist die Welt nicht ein ruhigerer Ort geworden, wie von vielen vorausgesagt. Eher im Gegenteil. Zahlreiche Krisenherde und Konfliktfelder sind zu registrieren. Globalisierung führt nur teilweise zu Integration und Homogenisierung. In vielen Bereichen und Regionen fragmentiert sich die Weltgesellschaft. Sogenannte neue Risiken verschränken sich mit älteren. Die Themenbeiträge widmen sich den Neuen Kriegen und gewaltförmiger Konfliktaustragung; demographischen Veränderungen; den Kontextfaktoren Energie und Umwelt; Aids, stellvertretend für gesundheitliche Risiken; dem Komplex der neuen Wissensdifferenzen und Zugangsschranken; der Gefährdung von Infrastrukturen; der Bedeutung von Strömen (flows) - an den Beispielen von Kapital und Kommunikation; der Bedeutung von Identitäten und deren Irritationen; der Rolle und dem Ge- und Missbrauch von Medien; der verbleibenden oder auch neuen Rolle von Politik; und, damit verbunden, aber auch Unterschieden, den residualen Funktionen von Staaten." (Textauszug).

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent establishment of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), considerable efforts have been made to estimate the risks of terrorism and the cost effectiveness of security policies to reduce these risks. DHS, industry, and the academic risk analysis communities have all invested heavily in the development of tools and approaches that can assist decisionmakers in effectively allocating limited resources across the vast array of potential investments that could mitigate risks from terrorism and other threats to the homeland. Decisionmakers demand models, analyses, and decision support that are useful for this task and based on the state of the art. Since terrorism risk analysis is new, no single method is likely to meet this challenge. In this article we explore a number of existing and potential approaches for terrorism risk analysis, focusing particularly on recent discussions regarding the applicability of probabilistic and decision analytic approaches to bioterrorism risks and the Bioterrorism Risk Assessment methodology used by the DHS and criticized by the National Academies and others.

"Recent events from the economic downturn to climate change mean that there has never been a better time to be thinking about and trying to better understand the concept of risk. In this book, prominent and eminent speakers from fields as diverse as statistics to classics, neuroscience to criminology, politics to astronomy, as well as speakers embedded in the media and in government have put their ideas down on paper in a series of essays that broaden our understanding of the meaning of risk. After twenty-five years, the prestigious Darwin College Lectures are one of the most popular public lecture series at the University of Cambridge. The risk lectures in 2010 were amongst the most popular yet and, in essay form, they make for a lively and engaging read for specialists and non-specialists alike"--

AbstractIn assessing environmental health risks, the risk characterization step synthesizes information gathered in evaluating exposures to stressors together with dose–response relationships, characteristics of the exposed population, and external environmental conditions. This article summarizes key steps of a cumulative risk assessment (CRA) followed by a discussion of considerations for characterizing cumulative risks. Cumulative risk characterizations differ considerably from single chemical‐ or single source‐based risk characterization. CRAs typically focus on a specific population instead of a pollutant or pollutant source and should include an evaluation of all relevant sources contributing to the exposures in the population and other factors that influence dose–response relationships. Second, CRAs may include influential environmental and population‐specific conditions, involving multiple chemical and nonchemical stressors. Third, a CRA could examine multiple health effects, reflecting joint toxicity and the potential for toxicological interactions. Fourth, the complexities often necessitate simplifying methods, including judgment‐based and semi‐quantitative indices that collapse disparate data into numerical scores. Fifth, because of the higher dimensionality and potentially large number of interactions, information needed to quantify risk is typically incomplete, necessitating an uncertainty analysis. Three approaches that could be used for characterizing risks in a CRA are presented: the multiroute hazard index, stressor grouping by exposure and toxicity, and indices for screening multiple factors and conditions. Other key roles of the risk characterization in CRAs are also described, mainly the translational aspect of including a characterization summary for lay readers (in addition to the technical analysis), and placing the results in the context of the likely risk‐based decisions.