Kuopio Risk Assessment Workshop 2008

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Kuopio risk assessment workshop 2008 is the second workshop about new methods in risk assessment, organised by the National Public Health Institute (KTL), Kuopio, Finland. Its main purpose is to promote the idea and practice of Open Risk Assessment, and further develop methods to perform them. The workshop has started from the needs of several EU-funded research projects, notably Intarese, Beneris, and Heimtsa. The workshop is mainly directed to doctoral students working in the fields of environmental health or risk assessment, but it is also open to anyone interested. If you want to join the workshop, please create a user account (by following the log in/create account link in the right-top corner of the page) with your contact information and add your username to the list on the bottom of this page. There is no deadline for registration nor a registration fee for the workshop, but early registration is highly recommended in order to help both the organizers and the participants to arrange the facilities, programs etc.

General information

Time: 18.2 - 22.2.2008
Place: KTL, Kuopio, Finland (Kuopio info)
Organizer: National Public Health Institute (KTL), Department of Environmental Health

<googlemap lat="62.903976" lon="27.638855" type="map" zoom="11" width="375"> 62.893334, 27.679328, Kuopio, Finland 62.890603, 27.627397, KTL Neulaniementie 4, 70701 Kuopio, Finland </googlemap>


5-day weather forecast for Kuopio by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

5-day weather forecast for Kuopio (in Finnish) by Foreca.

Description

The workshop will focus on Open Risk Assessment (ORA), namely:

  • The theoretical considerations behind ORA
  • Methods to put the theory into practice
  • Technical facilitation of applying the methods
  • Group work on a real-life risk assessment case

The workshop will consist of lectures on Open Risk Assessment theory and methods as well as applying the methods to describe and evaluate a real-life risk assessment case using the software tools that have been and are being developed for the purpose.

Facilities

A working space for all participants will be provided at the premises of KTL, but the Monday program will take place at the nearby University of Kuopio. Each participant should bring along a laptop computer. If this is not possible for you, please inform the organizers about this and we will see what we can do about it. KTL can provide the educational licenses of Analytica modeling software, which will be needed in the group work, for those who do not already have it installed in their computers.

If there should be any people who would like to participate in the workshop, but cannot come to Kuopio to attend the workshop in person, a web-conference access can be provided for the lecture sessions using Skype. The group work will be worked on using the Heande website, so also outsiders can relatively easily take part in that as well. This way you may also participate from wherever you are, as most major things - except the social program - will be made available via Internet.

Workshop program

There will be daily lectures on Open Risk Assessment, starting from the principles and proceeding towards more specific issues of different aspects of the method. The lecture topics are chosen so that they will support doing the group work as it proceeds during the week.

Alongside the lectures, there will be a group work case study on a real-life risk assessment. The case study will be about health impacts of Helsinki bus traffic. The material to be used in the case study will be taken from an already conducted risk assessment (known as the Gasbus project) and the group work tasks will be related to 1) converting the risk assessment model and documentation about it into the Open Risk Assessment information structure and 2) evaluating the assessment according to the performance criteria of Open Risk Assessment method. In practice this will be done in the form of creating a number of wiki-pages (variables) and then deliberating the contents of these pages as well as the whole assessment that they comprise. The work will be chopped into bite-size pieces so that the whole group of participants can be divided into smaller groups of ca. 2-4 people working primarily on their own part of the assessment, but also discussing the work of others and the overall assessment. In the end all of the different parts will be compiled into a complete assessment (description + evaluation) and scrutinized together as the whole group. On the first day of the workshop there will be some introductory exercises on using the software tools, namely Mediawiki and Analytica, that will be used in the group work.

The daily workshop program will follow the same structure for the whole week:

  • Morning session, incl. practical arrangements 9:00 - 11:45
  • Lunch 11:45 - 12:45
  • Afternoon session 12:45 - 16:45

Daily topics for lectures and group work:

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Morning Lecture: Introduction to Open Risk Assessment (ORA)
  • purpose of ORA
  • process, product and use
  • open participation
  • basic concepts
 Lecture: Information structure of ORA
  • context, assessment, variable
  • name, scope, definition, result
  • content, description and discussion
 Lecture: Communication as a part of ORA process
  • discussion, commenting and argumentation
  • moderation and quality control
 Lecture: Evaluating performance of ORA
  • properties of good RA
  • relations between properties and information structure
  • evaluation as an inherent part of the process
 Group work: Improvement of the assessment
  • assessment descriptions
  • variable descriptions
  • linkages between variables
Afternoon Group work: Introduction to wiki and Analytica Group work: Creating variables in small groups Group work: Compiling the variables into an assessment Group work: Evaluation of the assessment Wrap-up of the group work and the workshop

Social program

In addition to lectures and group-work, there will be a great social program, which may include e.g. the following kinds of activities (please add your own suggestions):


Tentative schedule for social activities (please comment!)

  • Monday evening: 'Curling at Tuplajäät?
  • Tuesday evening: Skiing, X-country and/or downhill, on Puijo
  • Wednesday evening: Skating on the lake Kallavesi (exploiting the Ice marathon tracks)
  • Thursday evening: Smoke sauna and ice swimming + dinner buffet
  • Friday evening: Spontaneous activities for those who stay in Kuopio until Saturday or longer

Please note that, the social activities are voluntary and the costs of activities will be borne by the participants themselves. The schedule can be adapted according to the weather conditions if seen necessary.

Accommodation information

Due to unexpected demand of student apartments in Kuopio this year, it appears that the Kuopio student housing company is unable to provide enough student apartments for our needs during the workshop. Therefore, the accommodation for the workshop participants will be arranged primarily through Hotel Savonia.

We have negotiated a reasonable agreement with Hotel Savonia for the workshop participants. The prices for Hotel Savonia are as follows (including breakfast buffet, free use of sauna + swimming pool and gym):

  • 1 person room 75 €/night
  • 2 person room 90 €/night

If staying in a 2 person room and staying only for approximately the duration of the workshop, the accommodation costs per person will not differ much from the originally planned student apartment accommodation option. However, if staying in a 1 person room or staying in Kuopio significantly longer than just for the workshop, the accommodation costs will unfortunately be higher than that originally planned.

Please send the organizers the following information:

  • The duration of your stay
  • Do you want to stay in 1 person or 2 person room; and in case of 2 person room
    • If you have preferences for who you would like to share your room with

The information about the amount of guests, their names, amount of required rooms and room types will be collected by the workshop organizers, and sent to the hotel on behalf of all the workshop participants. The accommodation information will be confirmed to the hotel by 1 February. If you shall register for the workshop after that, please contact Hotel Savonia directly yourself to book a room. Please use the booking reference KTL Risk while booking your room. The prices for the workshop participants will remain the same even if booking were made after 1 February.

If you require some other form of accommodation than the provided Hotel option, you can contact the organizers and we can try to look for other options, or you may also arrange your accommodation yourself.

Attendees

Please list your name and organisation here: (Requires login)

Locals (no accommodation needeed):

  1. Juha Villman, KTL
  2. Mikko Pohjola, KTL
  3. Jouni Tuomisto, KTL
  4. Päivi Meriläinen, KTL
  5. Erkki Kuusisto, KTL
  6. Anne Hæreid, University of Kuopio
  7. Trisha Rytkönen, University Of Kuopio
  8. Kwaku Oduro Lokko, University of Kuopio
  9. Pauliina Ahtoniemi, University of Kuopio
  10. Virpi Kollanus, KTL
  11. Marjo Niittynen, KTL
  12. Miranda Loh, KTL

Foreign (accommodation needed):

  1. James Grellier, Imperial College London
  2. Vlasta Svecova, IEM AS CR (accommodation from 11th to 23th February)
  3. Nina Iszatt, Imperial College London
  4. Kinga Lancz, Slovak medical university SR (accommodation from 11th to 22nd of February)
  5. Lubica Palkovicova, Slovak medical university SR
  6. Jana Tulinska, Slovak Medical University
  7. Antonio Gasparrini, LSHTM, London
  8. Danielle Vienneau, Imperial College London
  9. Matteo Prandi, Hylobates Consulting Srl
  10. Anne Knol, RIVM
  11. Eva Kunseler, MNP
  12. Alexandra Kuhn, USTUTT
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