Risk accompanies a person in any of his activities and throughout life. Potential danger - an unpredictable phenomenon that can occur even in the most unexpected situations, which entail diseases, physical damage, and sometimes death. In high school, at the lessons of Belarusian Railways, children are taught how to act in certain circumstances associated with risk, how to provide first aid and what consequences the various types of threats carry. Indeed, in the safety of human life, risk is a fundamental criterion, because thanks to this concept it is possible to identify the degree of potential danger of any event, object or technical system.
Thanks to this article, you can understand the essence of existing dangers and learn how to calculate threat levels in specific situations.
Definition of risk
According to the definition of explanatory dictionaries, risk is a possible danger or action that is performed by a person in the hope of a positive outcome. In general, the definition is correct, but do not forget about the various health risk factors that can affect the commission and result of any action. From a scientific point of view, this is how often potential threats become real. That is, each person can calculate this frequency and determine for himself how high the probability of an accident.
Risk types
In order to deal with this concept in more detail, you should find out what types of threats exist today. This typology represents risk categories for the reasons for their occurrence:
- natural or natural - natural disasters that a person cannot influence;
- technogenic - the probability of physical damage from various machines, technical systems, equipment at the factory, etc .;
- public - for example, the possibility of terrorism in a public place;
- Ecological - global warming, environmental pollution, etc.
The presented types of risk are most often realized in reality. It is worth noting that every year the likelihood of an event that entails negative consequences is growing. This is due to the fact that humanity is increasingly neglecting the care of its neighbor and the environment and is less and less paying attention to any health risk factors.
Personal risk category
In everyday life, people most often face the problem of their own security.
Individual risk is what a person is exposed to as a result of various factors that can carry a potential threat. When determining the personal risk of an individual, it is necessary to take into account the length of time spent in the “danger zone”, as well as the place of residence of this citizen.
Since the most valuable benefit is human life, life safety experts bring personal risk to the forefront. Also, when analyzing hazards of a different nature, this category helps to determine the permissible and unacceptable degrees of threat.
Several years ago, scientific researchers, sociologists, and other interested parties introduced the concept of “critical dose,” that is, the very limit after which a lethal outcome occurs. However, the indicator cannot have clear boundaries, because the degree of susceptibility of each person is different. Thus, individual risk can be considered as the frequency of the influence of the “critical dose” on the body of a particular individual in a particular territory.
Personal risk types
The following categories of individual risk exist:
- dangers that anyone can face regardless of profession, nationality, lifestyle and status in society;
- hazards associated with professional activities;
- unforced risk that a person can take on their own free will (for example, parachuting).
Threats in each category can be avoided. It depends solely on the actions of the individual in a critical situation and the level of his own safety.
Sources of danger for everyone
Sometimes people themselves do not know where danger can await them. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study in more detail the root causes of all kinds of threats to any person. Sources of potential hazards include:
- natural disasters;
- society (the “dangerous” region in which you live, armed conflicts, war, etc.);
- amateur activities (driving a car without driving skills, engaging in tourism without being accompanied by a specialist, etc.);
- transport (crossing the road in the wrong place);
- production (non-compliance with ergonomics);
- poor ecology (living next door to a plant that releases harmful substances into the atmosphere);
- bad habits (smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction, as well as gambling abuse);
- the internal state of the human body (hereditary and infectious diseases);
- victimism.
The latter source of danger is quite controversial. Victimism, or victimism, is the psychological state of a person in which he is confident that the cause of all ills is himself. Also, this belief can be defined as a person’s predisposition to fall into unpleasant situations.
Risk Approaches
There are various methods for calculating risk categories: theoretical, mathematical and practical, but all of them are aimed at one result - to identify the possibility of a threat. The most common approaches to hazard identification are the following theoretical types of analysis:
- study and analysis of statistical data;
- building risk factor models;
- opinion polls of the population;
- survey of life safety specialists.
It is worth noting that it is worth analyzing the risk of danger from various angles, so applying only one approach is not practical.
Risk Formula
In addition to theoretical analysis, there is a mathematical methodology for calculating risks, which can help to obtain calculated data and determine the level of threat for each individual.
This formula looks like this: R = n / N
R is the possibility of a threat to human life, n is the number of deaths per year for a specific reason, N is the population in a particular territory.
In practice, this calculation method is the most popular, since with its help each person can easily calculate the probability of a threat in a particular situation for himself.
The concept of acceptable individual risk
Due to the growing number of industrial injuries, deaths due to natural disasters and the emergence of unexpected threats in everyday life, experts identified three zones of danger level: permissible, variable and unacceptable.
The concept of “acceptable risk” includes rare events such as natural disasters or an airplane crash. From these events, the smallest number of people per year die. The “variable zone” includes injuries sustained in the workplace, especially if human activities are related to metallurgy or construction. But to the zone of "unacceptable risk" include traffic accidents and some diseases, such as cardiovascular.