ABSTRACT
Decisions that set priorities for food safety regulation must be made in the face of considerable uncertainty regarding the probabilities of health risks, the effectiveness of interventions to reduce those risks, and the health consequences for people who face these risks. More generally, public health priorities involve not only the choice of which food safety risks to focus on, but also the relative value of applying resources toward food safety as compared with other public health measures, such as environmental regulation, transportation safety, and medical care. The premise of this book is that systematic, scientific approaches to assessing and quantifying those risks, and of responses to them, are appropriate in guiding those resource allocations.
