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| − | '''The purpose of a risk assessment''' is to improve societal decision-making in a particular risk situation.
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| − | :← The assessment should provide relevant information about the risk situation in a quantitative form.
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| − | ::← In general, '''the information provided is about predictions on the impacts of possible decisions on some outcomes that have a societal value'''. However, the scope of the information can be narrowed in a particular case e.g. in the following ways:
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| − | ::* The only decision considered is business-as-usual. This results in estimates of the burden of the current situation.
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| − | ::* Outcomes considered are not explicitly valuated, but implicitly it is assumed that they relate to something that has intrinsic value. For example, pollutant concentrations can be estimated, although it is the related health impact that has the intrinsic value.
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| − | Risk assessments should always be done for a purpose. When the purpose is identified and kept clear in mind and preferably explicated and made public, it helps to guide the process in producing a desired kind of assessment product. The primary purpose is to improve societal decision making by providing good descriptions of chosen parts of reality for the use of the decision-makers. The process of describing the purpose is now considered as an essential and integral part of the method. Proper identification of the purpose of risk assessment crucially affects the assessment process and the content and essence of the final product. See also [[Help:General properties of good risk assessments]].
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| − | It is probably relatively easy for most people to agree that the ultimate underlying goal of risk assessments should be good societal decisions. This means that a risk assessment should always be designed and carried out in an attempt to progress towards this goal. For each particular risk assessment the situation is naturally different and thus the outputs and outcomes of each assessment are and should always be case-specific and in accordance with the contextual setting of the particular case. The purpose should still be kept clear in mind when planning or carrying out as well as evaluating an assessment or using its outputs. It is thus highly recommended that the purpose of each risk assessment is identified and defined explicitly already in the early phases of the process and also made public if applicable.
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| − | The overall purpose of risk assessment can be considered as composing of two different aspects. The general purpose is to describe reality, i.e. to explicate real-world phenomena in a comprehensible and usable form. But mere describing reality without any specific, identified need for the description would probably not make much sense as such. There must also be a certain purpose to undertake such a task, an instrumental purpose, or use purpose, for the outputs of the assessment. It is important to notice these two simultaneously effective components of purpose and the different requirements they bring to risk assessment. The implications of the different aspects of purpose are discussed in more detail e.g. in [[Help:Performance]].
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| − | At this point an important distinction should be made clear. There are real-world phenomena that can be considered as objects whose interactions constitute the reality. On the other hand, when talking about risk assessment, we talk about objects that are descriptions about these real-world objects/phenomena. It should be kept in mind that these objects are not the same, although they are inherently related. The previous is the original issue itself, while the latter is a chunk of information about it. One should also remember that the influential relation between these objects is only one-way - a change in a real-world object/phenomenon, or in the knowledge about it, changes (or should change) the description object, but a change in the description does not change the real-world object/phenomenon.
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| − | In pyrkilo method reality is described as '''variables''' and '''assessments''' (and also as contexts of assessments if seen necessary). An assessment is an object which creation and development is driven by the instrumental use purpose derived from a practical need in the context of the assessment. A variable is an object which creation is also driven by a practical need related to a particular assessment, but which development is driven by the general purpose of describing reality. See [[Help:Risk assessment structure]], [[Help:Variable]] and [[Help:Universal information structure for risk assessment products]] for more detailed descriptions on important object types and their structure according to pyrkilo method.
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| | ====Management==== | | ====Management==== |
