Help:Guidebook on risk assessment

Guidebook on risk assessment is an electronic information center about making risk assessments according to the new risk assessment method. It describes each phase of the work, each method used, and each tool available to help in this work. It has open access and it is not necessary to login in order to reach this information. Material is mainly texts about methods and theories. There will be a short summary text about the issue that the user is facing and why it is important, linking to more detailed texts about the methods. These detailed texts will be complemented with short fact-sheets about the methods, with relevant links to the supporting resources in the Integrated resource platform. Depending on the specific phase/methods, these different types of texts will be more or less important/extensive.

Guidebook in the issue framing phase

In the issue framing phases, the guidebook will provide access to methods and guidelines dealing with the 'why' question("Why are we doing this assessment? What would be the output in order to answer this question?") and the 'what' question ("What are we looking at and including in our assessment in order to answer our 'why' question?" ) Methods that are currently being developed in SP1 and that relate to this phase include:

• Purpose and properties of good risk assessments
• Issue framing
• Scenario definition
• Full chain approach and causality
• Indicator selection and specification
• Variable definition and structure
• Addressing uncertainty in a risk assessment
• Including stakeholders in a risk assessment
• Reporting and logging your assessment

Each of these layers will include links to relevant pages in the Integrated resource platform and the Collaborative workspace as well as links to related information in this layer.

Guidebook in the design and execution phases

In the design and execution phases, the guidebook will provide information on the "how" question ("How can we estimate the variables included in our assessment?"). Methods that are currently being developed in SP1 and that relate to this phase include:

• Source to exposure and exposure to effects
  • Source to exposure models
  • Intake fraction models
  • Models for source attribution of exposure
  • Exposure-response assessment
  • Use of both epidemiological and toxicological evidence in the exposure-response assessment
  • Combined exposures

• Aggregated Impact measures/ cross-cutting issues
  • Principles of monetary valuation and CBA
  • DALYs and burden of disease measures
  • Risk perception and MAU-analysis
  • Combining value judgments with descriptions of physical phenomena
  • Equity issues

• Research methods
  • Systematic review / Meta analysis (frequentist’ meta-analysis, Bayesian meta-analysis, meta-regression)
  • Expert panel / elicitation
  • Multiple-bias modelling
  • Bayesian methods
  • GIS methods
  • Collective structured learning
  • Mass collaboration (including stakeholder involvement)
  • Dealing with disputes

• Uncertainty
  • Uncertainty analysis & Knowledge quality assessment
  • Characterizing uncertainty in the exposure-response assessment phase more systematically (e.g. see tables in WP1.3 protocol)
  • Value of information

Each of these layers will include links to relevant pages in layer 2 and 3, as well as links to related information in this layer.

Guidebook in the reporting phase

In the reporting phase, the guidebook will provide information about final reporting, communicating and closing of the assessment. Methods that are currently being developed in SP1 and that relate to this phase include:

• Reporting results to policy makers and other stakeholders
• Graphical presentation of results, including GIS
• Communicating uncertainty
• Evaluating the risk assessment process