ABSTRACT
Risk assessment pursues truth. It is a set of logical, systematic, evidence-based analytical activities designed to provide risk managers with the best possible identification and description of the risk(s) associated with the decision problem. Risk assessment systematically reduces the uncertainty that attends a problem. It carefully documents the uncertainty that attends its findings. Risk assessors communicate, coordinate, and cooperate with risk managers, but their work is conducted independently of the values that risk managers consider in decision making. A growing number of communities of practice do risk assessment and many of them have developed very specialized risk assessment models for their use. The best of these models includes some version of four generic steps. First, identify the source of the risk, the hazard to be avoided, or the opportunity to be pursued. Second, assess the consequences of the hazard or opportunity. Third, and possibly concurrently, assess the likelihood of the consequences. Fourth, characterize the risk in ways meaningful to risk managers drawing on the science, evidence, and uncertainty identified in the preceding steps. Risk assessment may be qualitative or quantitative; it is a positive process.
