Hazard Evaluation and Risk Assessment

1
Hazard Evaluation and Risk Assessment

• Session 2
• Laboratory Safety Training

2
What is Risk?

• 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 occurring
  times the consequence of the event given that it
  has occurred.

3
Risk analysis

• 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.

4
Risk assessment

• The process of establishing information regarding
  acceptable levels of a risk and/or levels of risk
  for an individual, group, society, or the
  environment.

5
Risk estimation

• The scientific determination of the
  characteristics of risks, usually in as
  quantitative a way as possible. These include the
  magnitude, spatial scale, duration and intensity
  of adverse consequences and their associated
  probabilities as well as a description of the
  cause and effect links

6
Risk evaluation

• A component of risk assessment in which judgments
  are made about the significance and acceptability
  of risk

7
Risk identification

• Recognizing that a hazard exists and trying to
  define its characteristics. Often risks exist and
  are even measured for some time before their
  adverse consequences are recognized. In other
  cases, risk identification is a deliberate
  procedure to review, and it is hoped, anticipate
  possible hazards.

8
Safety

• Relative protection from adverse consequences.

9
Hazard

• A condition or physical situation with a
  potential for an undesirable consequence, such as
  harm to life or limb.

10
Hazard assessment

• An analysis and evaluation of the physical,
  chemical and biological properties of the hazard.
  

11
New of culture of Chemical Safety

• Public opinion of chemicals has changed over the
  last 25 years.
• Love Canal 1977.
• Designation of Superfund Sites.
• Community Right to Know laws.
• Cradletograve management of wastes

12
Culture of chemical safety cont.

• On Dec. 3, 1984, a Union Carbide industrial plant
  in Bhopal, India, released a deadly cloud of the
  gas methyl isocyanate into the air, killing at
  least 6,500 people.
• OSHAs Process Safety Management

13
Annual Risk of Death in the US

• Hazard Number of deaths/million persons
• All Causes 9,000.0
• Motor Vehicle Accidents 210.0
• Work Accidents 150.0
• Homicides 93.0
• Drowning 37.0
• Poisonings 17.0
• Boating 0.6
• Tornadoes 0.4
• Bites and Stings 0.2

14
Annual Risk of Death in the US

• Hazard Number of deaths/million persons
• Motor Vehicle Accidents 210.0
• Work Accidents 150.0
• Homicides 93.0
• Drowning 37.0
• Poisonings 17.0
• Boating 0.6
• Tornadoes 0.4
• Bites and Stings 0.2

15
RISK COMPARISONS FOR INVOLUNTARY RISKS

• Risk Risk of Death / Person / Year
• Influenza 1 in 5000
• Leukemia 1 in 12,500
• Struck by Automobile 1 in 20,000
• Floods 1 in 455,000
• Tornadoes (Midwest) 1 in 455,000
• Earthquakes (California) 1 in 588,000
• Nuclear Power Plant 1 in 10 million
• Meteorite 1 in 100 billion

16
CONCEPT OF DE MINIMIS RISK

• De minimis risks are those risks judged to be too
  small to be of social concern, or too small to
  justify the use of risk management resources for
  control.
• The De minimis risk level frequently used by
  government agencies (EPA, FDA) is 1 in 1,000,000
  or 1 in a million increased risk of an adverse
  effect occurring over a 70 year lifetime in a
  large population.

17
CONCEPT OF DE MINIMIS RISK

• The 1 in a million risk level used to regulate
  some chemicals and other hazards is many times
  below risks which people face every day.

18
Reality check

• There is no point in getting into a panic about
  the risks of life until you have compared the
  risks which worry you with those that dont, but
  perhaps should. (Lord Rothschild, The Wall
  Street Journal, 1979).

19
RISKS THAT INCREASE PROBABILITY OF DEATH BY ONE
IN A MILLION

• Activity Cause of Death
• Smoking 1.4 Cigarettes Cancer, Heart Disease
• Traveling 10 miles by Bicycle Accident
• Traveling 300 miles by Car Accident
• Flying 1000 miles by Jet Accident
• One Chest X-Ray Cancer from Radiation
• Living 150 years within Cancer from Radiation 20
  miles of a Nuclear Power Plant
• Risk of Accident by Living Cancer from
  Radiation within 5 Miles of a Nuclear
• Reactor for 50 yrs

20
Principal Elements of Risk Assessment

• Anticipation
• Recognition
• Evaluation

21
Risk Assessment vs. Risk Management

• Anticipation, Recognition and Evaluation are Risk
  Assessment
• Control is Risk Management

22
Risk is an Equal Functionof Toxicity and Exposure

• Paracelsus Understood Risk Assessment
• Risk Toxicity X Dose
• Exposure Dose
• Risk Toxicity X Dose

23
Ensuring Safe Laboratories

• These thought processes must occur prior to
  conducting all laboratory research.