TOLERABLE RISK

 

Tolerable risk is defined as being risk that is bearable in a specific context based on the current values of society. It follows that, over time, protective measures may have led to an acceptance of the residual risk (resulting from identified hazards) that may need to be reviewed periodically to determine if residual risk levels are at tolerable levels. This is because tolerability in this case is not a static entity.

Some organizations use a cost benefit analysis to justify when a risk is tolerable, however there is a flaw in this process. Utilitarianism thinking closely aligns with cost-benefit analysis where most of the cost-benefit analyses gives the initiator the costs and benefits, and not the costs and benefits to everybody. In addition, it will be a brave person that will put a monetary cost to an employee’s life.

Legislative standards establish minimum levels of performance that are not fixed on a consequential outcome, often leaving some level of risk. If the residual risk is high (relative to the affected site’s risk tolerance) after applying controls established by legislation, the affected site may have to implement controls beyond the requirements of the legislation to further decrease the probability and/or resulting severity of an adverse occurrence. Some laws have general duty clauses such as “take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of a worker” to address these types of gaps. It is not always possible for employers to write safety procedure for every job task that may take place in a workplace.

Therefore, site specific occupational health and safety standards in essence establish minimum tolerable risk for the subject activity or exposure as defined by the specific employer. If a hazard is controlled in accordance with the appropriate employer’s standard, then the risk of the adverse event or outcome should be to the level deemed tolerable by the specific employer.

The introduction of the notion that only "significant risk" should be considered, further increases the difficulty in understanding risk assessment.  Traditionally, significance is seen to be statistically based, however, the Health Inspectorate deemed it impractical and unnecessary to establish significance of risk by means of statistical trending methods.  As there is already effective legislation in place, accident statistics will not show the full potential of the hazard but will only reflect what has happened in the past and the result of the residual risk combined with the accidents resulting from non-compliance.  Accident statistics are only an indication of the gaps in existing legislation.  It is for this reason that another approach is required.

Several authors have identified different means of establishing significance.  They are, however in agreement that three criteria must be satisfied before a causal association can be inferred between exposure and health or safety related incidence.

These criteria can be summarised as follows:

- There is no identified bias that could explain the association.

- The possibility of confounding has been considered and ruled out as explaining the association.

- The association is unlikely to be due to chance.

It should be noted that in general, legislation does not require statistical significance between a hazard and a specific type of accident before the hazard could be deemed to be a significant hazard. This could be triggered by any one of several things, including social outcries and emotional impacts by a single accident.

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