Techniques for Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is an important component in public health surveillance and early warning of emergencies as well as an important means of early detection, identification, and assessment of event risks. Timely risk assessment can effectively prevent or reduce the possible impacts and harms caused by outbreak events. At present, the WHO and health agencies in many countries consider risk assessment to be an important measure for dealing with public health emergencies. In 2010, the WHO also included risk assessment as a core competency in its strategy for the prevention and control of emerging and reemerging diseases. During the Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo, and major natural disasters, such as the Wenchuan earthquake and Yushu earthquake, China carried out many public health risk assessments and gained some experience. In 2011, in the process of preventing and responding to the outbreak of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) in Germany, risk assessment, as a red line, ran throughout the emergency response work, playing a very important role in gaining a timely understanding of the epidemic trend and dynamically adjusting the response strategy.