2018 ICPHSO International Symposium

When faced with product safety incident data it is difficult to determine what level of risk as acceptable to society. Traditional risk assessment methodologies are valuable, but often fall short as a tool to determine what action is warranted in practice to deal with the risk.   However, historic incident and injury data exists for categories of products, and these data can be presented in a manner that allows comparison of the relative safety of a product within its category. The panel will present approaches to determining the historic level of risk tolerance for various categories of products. It will provide a presentation and comparison of methods that are available to industry, regulators, NGOs and the public when determining the level of risk that is tolerable.  The presentation will include discussion on how risk assessment methodologies, and their application, can be tailored to account for differing risk patterns in a diverse society, including adjustments to ensure the protection of more vulnerable persons. The topic sets up an interesting dynamic for a panel discussion and interaction with the audience.  The panel will provide a European and North American perspective.  Audience participation will include a series of multiple-choice questions concerning audience’s view of product safety risk tolerance and its influences, as well as, significant time for questions.