Download Risk Ranking: Development of single metric for risk ranking by the NZFSA

From 2002 – 2005 the risk ranking project conducted by ESR for the NZFSA developed a process, and used expert opinion to produce severity and incidence estimates for a number of food/(microbiological) hazard combinations. The challenge is now to rank these, by devising a single metric that describes the burden of disease by combining information about severity and incidence. A further challenge will be to devise this metric in a way that is also applicable to chemical hazards. The health effect most commonly associated with foodborne microbiological hazards is acute gastrointestinal disease; chemical hazards cause a wider variety of adverse health effects, usually after exposure over a much longer time period.