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Anticipating new and emerging risks

Risk anticipation is the key objective identified for the European Risk Observatory in the Community Strategy 2007-2012. Following consultation and debate with experts and stakeholders, we agreed upon a

working definition of "emerging OSH risks":
any occupational risk that is both new and increasing
.

By ‘new’ we mean that:

  • the risk did not previously exist and is caused by new processes, new technologies, new types of workplace, or social or organisational change; or,
  • a long-standing issue is newly considered as a risk due to a change in social or public perceptions; or,
  • new scientific knowledge allows a long-standing issue to be identified as a risk.

The risk is ‘increasing’ if the:

  • number of hazards leading to the risk is growing; or
  • the exposure to the hazard leading to the risk is increasing (exposure level and/or the number of people exposed); or
  • the effect of the hazard on workers' health is getting worse (seriousness of health effects and/or the number of people affected).

foresight

The first steps to identify emerging risks were taken with the publication of four expert forecast reports which have covered physical, biological, psychosocial and chemical emerging risks. These reports are the result of expert consultation through a Delphi methodology, and they have been followed up with numerous literature reviews and in-depth reports in order to explore the top risks identified in the expert forecasts, such as workplace exposure to nanomaterials.

The current Community Strategy 2007-2012 asked the European Risk Observatory to ‘enhance risk anticipation to include risks associated with new technologies, biological hazards, complex human-machine interfaces and the impact of demographic trends’. This supports the Observatory’s initiative to launch a foresight project to develop a series of scenarios to explore what could be the impact of technological innovation on occupational safety and health by the year 2020. The project will focus on 'green jobs' as the impetus to 'green' the economy is the opportunity to anticipate potential new risks in these developing jobs and to ensure that effective measures are put in place to prevent them. The scenarios produced should help policy-makers to better assess what decisions they need to consider in order to shape a better future of OSH.