The purpose of risk assessment

I’m often asked what seems like a pretty simple ques­tion: “Why do we need to do a risk assess­ment?” There are a lot of good reas­ons to do risk assess­ments, but ulti­mately, the pur­pose of risk assess­ment is best summed up in this quotation:

“Risk assess­ments, except in the simplest of cir­cum­stances, are not designed for mak­ing judge­ments, but to illu­min­ate them.”

Richard Wilson and E. A. C. Crouch, Sci­ence, Volume 236, 1987, pp.267

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