Risk

Risk is the potential of losing something of value, weighed against the potential to gain something of value. Values (such as physical health, social status, emotional well being or financial wealth) can be gained or lost when taking risk resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction, foreseen or unforeseen. Risk can also be defined as the intentional interaction with uncertainty. Risk perception is the subjective judgment people make about the severity of a risk, and may vary person to person. Any human endeavor carries some risk, but some are much riskier than others.

Basic definition
The probability of something happening multiplied by the resulting cost or benefit if it does. (This concept is more properly known as the 'Expectation Value' and is used to compare levels of risk)

International Organization for Standardization

The ISO 31000 (2009) / ISO Guide 73:2002 definition of risk is the 'effect of uncertainty on objectives'. In this definition, uncertainties include events (which may or may not happen) and uncertainties caused by ambiguity or a lack of information. It also includes both negative and positive impacts on objectives. Many definitions of risk exist in common usage, however this definition was developed by an international committee representing over 30 countries and is based on the input of several thousand subject matter experts.

In statistics, the notion of risk is often modeled as the expected value of an undesirable outcome. This combines the probabilities of various possible events and some assessment of the corresponding harm into a single value. See also expected utility. The simplest case is a binary possibility of Accident or No accident. The associated formula for calculating risk is then: Risk= (probability of the accident occurring) x (expected loss in case of accident)

Hazard
A hazard is a situation that poses a level of threat to life, health, property, or environment. Most hazards are dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk of harm; however, once a hazard becomes "active", it can create an emergency situation. A hazardous situation that has come to pass is called an incident. Hazard and possibility interact together to create risk.[1] Identification of hazard risks is the first step in performing a risk assessment.

Modes of hazards
Hazards are sometimes classified into three modes:[2]

Dormant - The situation has the potential to be hazardous, but no people, property, or environment is currently affected by this. For instance, a hillside may be unstable, with the potential for a landslide, but there is nothing below or on the hillside that could be affected.

Armed - People, property, or environment are in potential harm's way. Active - A harmful incident involving the hazard has actually occurred. Often this is referred to not as an "active hazard" but as an accident, emergency, incident, or disaster.

Types of Hazard
Hazards are generally of five types. They are as follow: Physical Hazards are conditions or situations that can cause the body physical harm or intense stress. Physical hazards can be both natural and human made elements. Chemical hazards are substances that can cause harm or damage to the body, property or the environment. Chemical hazards can be both natural and human made origin. Biological hazards are biological agents that can cause harm to the human body. These some biological agents can be viruses, parasite, bacteria, food, fungi, and foreign toxin. Psychological hazards are created during work related stress or a stressful environment. Radiation hazards causes harm to the human or damage body by affecting the cell directly.

There are several methods of classifying a hazard, but most systems use some variation on the factors of "likelihood" of the hazard turning into an incident and the "seriousness" of the incident if it were to occur. (This discussion moved away from hazard to a discussion of risk.) A common method is to score both likelihood and seriousness on a numerical scale (with the most likely and most serious scoring highest) and multiplying one by the other in order to reach a comparative score.

Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability (-) Capacity

This score can then be used to identify which hazards may need to be mitigated. A low score on likelihood of occurrence may mean that the hazard is dormant, whereas a high score would indicate that it may be an "active" hazard.

Vulnerability
Vulnerability refers to the inability to withstand the effects of a hostile environment. A window of vulnerability (WoV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are reduced, compromised or lacking. In relation to hazards and disasters, vulnerability is a concept that links the relationship that people have with their environment to social forces and institutions and the cultural values that sustain and contest them. The concept of vulnerability expresses the multi-dimensionality of disasters by focusing attention on the totality of relationships in a given social situation which constitute a condition that, in combination with environmental forces, produces a disaster. It's also the extent to which changes could harm a system, or to which the community can be affected by the impact of a hazard or exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally: "we were in a vulnerable position".

Types of Vulnerability
Social In its sense, social vulnerability is one dimension of vulnerability to

multiple stressors and shocks,

including abuse, social

exclusion and natural

hazards.

Social vulnerability refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values.

Cognitive A cognitive vulnerability, in cognitive psychology, is an erroneous belief, cognitive bias, or pattern of thought that is believed to predispose the individual to psychological problems. It is in place before the symptoms of psychological disorders start to appear; after the individual encounters a stressful experience, the cognitive vulnerability shapes a maladaptive response that may lead to a psychological disorder.[6] In psychopathology, cognitive vulnerability is constructed from schema models, hopelessness models, and

attachment theory. Attention bias is one mechanism leading to faulty cognitive bias that leads to cognitive vulnerability. Allocating a danger level to a threat depends on the urgency or intensity of the threshold. Anxiety is not associated with selective orientation.

Military In military terminology, vulnerability is a subset of survivability, the others being susceptibility and recoverability. Vulnerability is defined in various ways depending on the nation and service arm concerned, but in general it refers to the near-instantaneous effects of a weapon attack. In aviation it is defined as the inability of an aircraft to withstand the damage caused by the man-made hostile environment. In some definitions, recoverability (damage control, firefighting, restoration of capability) is included in vulnerability. Some military services develop their own concept of vulnerability.

Safety equipment
Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, electrical, heat, chemicals, biohazards, and airborne particulate matter. Protective equipment may be worn for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, as well as for sports and other recreational activities. "Protective clothing" is applied to traditional categories of clothing, and "protective gear" applies to items such as pads, guards, shields, or masks, and others. The purpose of personal protective equipment is to reduce employee exposure to hazards when engineering and administrative controls are not feasible or effective to reduce these risks to acceptable levels. PPE is needed when there are hazards present. PPE has the serious limitation that it does not eliminate the hazard at source and may result in employees being exposed to the hazard if the equipment fails.

Types of safety equipment

Personal protective equipment can be categorized by the area of the body protected, by the types of hazard, and by the type of garment or accessory. A single item, for example boots, may provide multiple forms of protection: a steel toe cap and steel insoles for protection of the feet from crushing or puncture injuries, impervious rubber and lining for protection from water and chemicals, high reflectivity and heat resistance for protection from radiant heat, and high electrical resistivity for protection from electric shock. The protective attributes of each piece of equipment must be compared with the hazards expected to be found in the workplace.

Respirators Respirators serve to protect the user from breathing in contaminants in the air, thus preserving the health of one's respiratory tract. There are two main types of respirators. One type of respirator functions by filtering out chemicals and gases or airborne particles from the air breathed by the

user. Gas masks and particulate respirators are examples of this type of respirator. A second type of respirator protects users by providing clean, respirator air from another source. This type includes airline respirators and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). In work

environments, respirators are relied upon when adequate ventilation is not available or other engineering control systems are not feasible or inadequate.

Skin protection Occupational skin diseases such as contact dermatitis, skin cancers, and other skin injuries and infections are the second most common type of occupational disease and can be very costly. Skin hazards, which lead to occupational skin disease, can be classified into four groups. Chemical agents can come into contact with the skin through direct contact with contaminated surfaces, deposition of aerosols, immersion or

splashes. Physical agents such as extreme temperatures and ultraviolet or solar radiation can be damaging to the skin over prolonged exposure. Mechanical trauma occurs in the form of friction, pressure, abrasions, lacerations and contusions. Biological agents such as parasites, microorganism, plants and animals can have varied effects when exposed to the skin.

Eye protection Each day, about 2000 US workers have a job-related eye injury that requires medical attention.[6] Eye injuries can happen through a variety of means. Most eye injuries occur when solid particles such as metal slivers, wood chips, sand or cement chips get into the eye.[6] Smaller particles in smokes and larger particles, such as broken glass also account for particulate matter causing eye injuries. Blunt force trauma can occur to the eye when excessive force comes into contact with the eye. Chemical burns, biological agents, and thermal agents, from sources such as welding torches and UV light also contribute to occupational eye injury.

Hearing protection Industrial noise is often overlooked as an occupational hazard, as it is not visible to the eye. Overall, about 22 millions workers in the United States are exposed to potentially damaging noise levels each year. Occupational hearing loss accounted for 14% of all occupational illnesses in 2007, with about 23,000 cases significant enough to cause permanent hearing impairment. About 82% of occupational hearing loss cases occurred to workers in the manufacturing sector. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration establish occupational noise exposure standards. NIOSH recommends that worker exposures to noise be reduced to a level equivalent to 85 dBA for eight hours to reduce occupational noise induced hearing loss. PPE for hearing protection consists of earplugs and earmuffs. Workers who are regularly exposed to noise levels above the NIOSH recommendation should be furnished hearing protection by the employers, as they are a low-cost intervention.

Protective clothing and ensembles This form of PPE is all-encompassing and refers to the various suits and uniforms worn to protect the user from harm. Lab coats worn by scientists and ballistic vests worn by law enforcement officials, who are worn on a regular basis, would fall into this category. Entire sets of PPE, worn together in a combined suit, would also fall into this category.