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# How is a risk assessment done? In general, to do an assessment, you should: 1. Assemble a risk assessment team. Assessments should be done by a competent person or team of individuals who have a good working knowledge of the situation being studied. Include the supervisors and workers who work with the process under review on the team or as sources of information, as these individuals are the most familiar with the operation. The health and safety committee or representative should also be consulted. 2. Select the job or process to assess. Refer to the above section, "When should a risk assessment be done", to help prioritize your assessments. Ideally, risk assessments should be done for all jobs. Jobs or tasks with higher injury and illness rates, worker concerns, and other factors should be considered first. 3. Break down the job or process into tasks. Divide the job or process into tasks or basic steps to better understand the hazards. 4. Identify the hazards of each task. After the basic steps or tasks have been recorded, identify the hazards of each step or task. List the hazards based on observations and inspections, previous causes of incidents and injuries, feedback from workers and supervisors directly involved in the task, and other considerations. 5. Assess the risk of each hazard. For each hazard, determine the likelihood of harm, such as an injury or illness occurring, and its severity. Use a risk assessment method appropriate for your workplace (see further below for details on risk assessment methods). Consider normal operational situations as well as non-standard events such as maintenance, shutdowns, power outages, emergencies, extreme weather, etc. Review all available health and safety information about the hazard, such as Safety Data Sheet (SDS), manufacturer's literature, information from reputable organizations, results of testing, workplace inspection reports, records of workplace incidents (accidents), including information about the …

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# Hazard and Risk - General (cont.) ## What is risk? (cont.) These risks are expressed as a probability or likelihood of developing a disease or getting injured, whereas hazard refers to the agent responsible (i.e. smoking). Factors that influence the degree or likelihood of risk are: - the nature of the exposure: how much a person is exposed to a hazardous thing or condition (e.g., several times a day or once a year), - how the person is exposed (e.g., breathing in a vapour, skin contact), and - the severity of the effect. For example, one substance may cause skin cancer, while another may cause skin irritation. Cancer is a much more serious effect than irritation. ## What is a risk assessment? Risk assessment is the process where you: - Identify hazards and risk factors that have the potential to cause harm (hazard identification). - Analyze and evaluate the risk associated with that hazard (risk analysis, and risk evaluation). - Determine appropriate ways to eliminate the hazard, or control the risk when the hazard cannot be eliminated (risk control). The OSH Answers document on Risk Assessment has details on how to conduct an assessment and establish priorities. ## Are there other terms used to describe these processes? It is common to see the process of identifying hazards and assessing the corresponding risk to be described in various ways, including "hazard assessment", "hazard and risk assessment", "all hazards risk assessment", etc. Regardless of the terminology used, the critical steps are to make sure the workplace has taken a systematic approach that looks for any hazards (existing or potential), has take appropriate steps to determine the level of risk of these hazards, and then taken measures to control the risk or eliminate the hazard. Documentation from CCOHS will use the terms "hazard identification and "risk assessment" to describe the process of first looking for hazards, then determining the level of risk from that hazard. Hazar…