The final step in a risk assessment is characterizing the risk or determining what the consequences would be if things went wrong. This portion of the assessment includes a determination of the magnitude of the impact that would be felt as a result of any negative consequences. How that magnitude is expressed will vary depending on the nature of the hazards being assessed. It might be stated in terms of loss of life, amount of contamination of the environment, or dollars spent or loss. 5,6 Uncertainty is a factor that plays a role in all risk assessments and is a key to what makes them unique from other types of epidemiological analysis.
Risk assessments try to predict future events and their impacts.
However, there is never sufficient knowledge or data available for a given situation to complete a risk assessment with total certainty of the outcome or else one would not need to be doing the assessment in the first place. As one works through the steps of the risk assessment process, the amount of uncertainty associated with each calculation and probability should be determined, documented, and incorporated into the assessment. In addition to containing the previously mentioned components, a risk assessment should be accurate, timely, transparent, and objective. An inaccurate risk assessment can result in bad decisions by management since decisions can only be as good as the information upon which they are based. If a risk assessment is not completed in a timely fashion, the decision may have to be made without the benefit of the assessment.