Occupational Injury Risk Assessment: An Unintended and Unanticipated Consequence of the Red Book
The authors of the National Research Council's report Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process, called the "Red Book," included reference to "other hazards" and "other Federal programs to reduce health risks." With the focus on chemicals and cancer, the authors probably never considered that the risk assessment and risk management processes that they debated would find application in evaluating traumatic workplace injuries to reduce disability and death on the job. The severity of the consequences of workplace hazards, which are mostly immediate and do not have the long latency associated with cancer, is a significant public health risk. Quantitative risk assessment, to determine the incremental effects of additional exposure, also plays an important role in the workplace. This paper discusses these issues and reviews some of the important papers that explain occupational injury risk assessment and its applicability to risk management. workplace hazardstraumaticRed BookNational Research Councilfatal injuryoccupationsindustries.
Keywords: National Research Council; Red Book; fatal injury; industries; occupations; traumatic; workplace hazards
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Division of Safety Research, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA
Publication date: 01 September 2003
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