ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the topics of hazard analyses and the hazard-control hierarchy. In US and elsewhere, manufacturers are responsible for producing reasonably safe products. Manufacturers are assumed to have sophisticated knowledge with respect to their product compared to other entities, or at least relative to end-users. Given that manufacturers need to sell reasonably safe products, the hazards associated with their product need to be dealt with in effective ways. This usually means trying to design out the hazard, guard against the hazard, and/or warn about them—usually in that priority. Given the necessity of producing a reasonably safe product, manufacturers should invest time, money, and effort to determine the ways that people might use their product and how people might get hurt. Data are useful in determining product hazards. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission monitors consumer product injuries by collecting data in a variety of ways, including newspaper reports of product involvement in injuries and through death notices and obituaries.
