Strategies to Protect the Health of Deployed U.S. Forces Analytical Framework for Assessing Risks (2000) / Chapter Skim
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3 Existing Frameworks and Special Considerations
3 Existing Frameworks and Special Considerations
Pages 28-43
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From page 28... ...
, brought structure to the risk-assessment process and defined its key components in a framework that has been nearly universally accepted ever since. Key methodological issues were considered in Issues in Risk Assessment (NRC 1993a)
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From page 29... ...
This prescription is frequently misread to suggest that risk assessment must consider only "best" or "central" estimates of uncertain risks and that risk assessment and risk management must be entirely separate exercises carried out by different analysts. In fact, too rigid a separation only serves to hamper communication of the risk information to the riskmanagement decision-makers, who are best served when they are informed about what is known, what is not known, what is likely, and what is less likely yet possible about uncertain risks.
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From page 30... ...
Returning to the Red Book's framework for risk analysis, the NRC (1983) proposed dividing the risk assessment-phase into four key components: · Hazard identification the assessment of the qualitative properties of an agent's toxicity, including an assessment of the weight of evidence that it might in principle be able to produce toxic effects in the population of interest, provided doses are sufficient.
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From page 31... ...
Although the specific means of inference will differ, the central concept of hazard identification applies equally well whether the threat is the possible carcinogenicity of an industrial chemical, possible mechanical failure of a complex piece of machinery, possible disease caused by a poorly understood infectious microbe indigenous to a remote deployment site, possible use of a certain military tactic by an adversary, or the impacts of physical or psychological stress on the troops' morale and fighting effectiveness. The common conceptual elements of hazard identification include (1)
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From page 32... ...
It is recommended that even those types of hazards that are not usually explicitly analyzed using this paradigm be so analyzed by using it in the framework for assessment of risks to deployed forces. For example, risks of combat casualties, traffic accidents, aircraft malfunctions, industrial accidents, terrorist attacks, disease outbreaks, and adverse weather conditions could all be analyzed under a paradigm of similar conceptual structure.
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From page 33... ...
A full risk-assessment framework for deployed forces needs to address these issues as a way of identifying hazardous situations and resulting exposure scenarios, which can then be examined and more fully characterized in the context of the traditional NRC (1983) paradigm.
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From page 34... ...
The framework developed in the present report attempts to embody the spirit of the Commission's approach. While it does not take on the full problem of risk management for deployed forces, it does attempt to examine some of the aspects of that management that are particular to the context of deployed forces health protection and the consequent demands that this puts on the risk assessment process.
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From page 35... ...
Even when predictions can be improved, they rarely can predict which particular individuals in an exposed population will succumb to an adverse health event. At the level of the exposed population, one might be fairly confident in predicting, for example, the approximate fraction of people who will become ill after ingesting water contaminated with an infectious microbe, but for each exposed individual the risk is whether or not he will be among that fraction.
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From page 36... ...
occurs as a result of a complex scenario. For analysis, one might divide the compound event into a series of components, perhaps including the likelihood that troops will be stationed near such a storage facility, the likelihood that it is indeed sabotaged, the likelihood that the released chemical plume is transported in the direction of the troops, the likelihood that warning devices will operate correctly, the likelihood that troops will nonetheless get a critical level of exposure, and the likelihood that individual soldiers will succumb.
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From page 37... ...
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT RISK ASSESSMENT FOR DEPLOYMENT It is worthwhile to ask what special considerations are required for a framework for risk analysis in the case of assessing threats to the health and safety of deployed troops. Some of the special challenges and needs surrounding risk analysis for deployed forces are discussed in Chapter 2.
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From page 38... ...
Several technical matters suggest some alterations in conventional risk-assessment methodology and other issues that relate to the unique risk-management challenges presented by troop deployment challenges that the framework for conducting analyses of threats to deployed forces should be designed to address. Because risk analysis is above all a practical discipline, aimed at addressing the questions at hand, it is well to review the special considerations for deployedforces risk-assessments.
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From page 39... ...
This entails explicit recognition of the necessary trade-offs that are made between military effectiveness, mobility, and preparedness, on the one hand, and risks of immediate casualties, longer-term loss of health and well-being of service personnel, potential future governmental liabilities for treatment and compensation of deployed veterans, and even effects on morale and the reputation of the military for protecting troops, on the other hand. The burdens produced by accommodation of health and safety concerns, comprising equipment, logistic impediments, and training, as well as time and attention, can affect the military significantly.
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From page 40... ...
Utility to Field Commanders During deployment, especially in high-intensity situations, consequential decisions affecting responses to or defense against potential hazards might often need to be made by field-level commanders with modest relevant technical expertise and little time to gather and analyze relevant data. In civilian environmental health decision-making, in which issues are usually less pressing, it is typically possible to more thoroughly analyze specific situations, accumulate and analyze data, and subject the questions to centralized expert analysis.
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From page 41... ...
Exposures that are individually tolerable without appreciable risk might not be so when several are experienced together, and the question of interactions among agents looms particularly large for deployment risk assessment. The Population at Risk The nature of the population at risk in the military setting is different from the civilian setting.
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From page 42... ...
The military has the potential to gather and utilize a good deal of information about locations of troops, their activities, their exposures, personal medical and exposure histories, genetic differences, and characterization of baseline rates of exposure all information not readily available to civilian risk managers. There is the potential to make assignments based on past exposures or special sensitivities, avoiding exposures of those particularly susceptible to a hazard.
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From page 43... ...
and readily useful to field commanders. In addition, the uncommon exposure conditions and types of hazards encountered during deployment, as well as troop population characteristics, warrant special consideration.
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