Difference between revisions of "Kuopio Risk Assessment Workshop 2008"

Revision as of 13:17, 10 January 2008

Kuopio risk assessment workshop 2008 is the second workshop about new methods in risk assessment, organised by the National Public Health Institute (KTL), Kuopio, Finland. Its main purpose is to promote the idea and practice of Open Risk Assessment, and further develop methods to perform them. The workshop has started from the needs of several EU-funded research projects, notably Intarese, Beneris, and Heimtsa. The workshop is mainly directed to doctoral students working in the fields of environmental health or risk assessment, but it is also open to anyone interested. If you want to join the workshop, please create a user account (by following the log in/create account link in the right-top corner of the page) with your contact information and add your username to the list on the bottom of this page. There is no deadline for registration nor a registration fee for the workshop, but early registration is highly recommended in order to help both the organizers and the participants to arrange the facilities, programs etc.

General information

<googlemap lat="62.903976" lon="27.638855" type="map" zoom="11" width="375"> 62.893334, 27.679328, Kuopio, Finland 62.890603, 27.627397, KTL Neulaniementie 4, 70701 Kuopio, Finland </googlemap>

Description

The workshop will focus on Open Risk Assessment (ORA), namely:

• The theoretical considerations behind ORA
• Methods to put the theory into practice
• Technical facilitation of applying the methods
• Group work on a real-life risk assessment case

The workshop will consist of lectures on Open Risk Assessment theory and methods and applying the methods to describe and evaluate a real-life risk assessment case using the software tools that have been and are being developed for the purpose.

Facilities

A working space for all participants will be provided either at the premises of KTL or nearby Kuopio University or both. Each participant should bring along a laptop computer. If this is not possible for you, please let us know well in advance and we will see what we can do about it. KTL can provide the educational licenses of Analytica modeling software, which will be needed in the group work, for those who do not already have it installed in their computers.

If there should be any people who would like to participate in the workshop, but cannot come to Kuopio to attend the workshop in person, a web-conference access can be provided for the lecture sessions using Skype. The group work will be worked on using the Heande website, so also outsiders can relatively easily take part in that. This way you may also participate from wherever you are, as most major things - except the social program - will be made available via Internet.

Workshop program

There will be daily lectures on Open Risk Assessment, starting from the basic principles and proceeding towards more specific issues of different aspects of the method. The lecture topics are chosen so that they will support conducting the group work as it proceeds.

Alongside the lectures, there will be a group work case study on a real-life risk assessment. The case study will be about health impacts of Helsinki bus traffic. The material to be used in the case study will be taken from an already conducted risk assessment (known as the Gasbus project) and the group work tasks will be related to 1) converting the risk assessment model and documentation into the Open Risk Assessment information structure and 2) evaluating the assessment according to the Open Risk Assessment method. In practice this will happen as creating a number of wiki-pages (variables) and then deliberating the contents of these pages as well as the whole assessment that they comprise. The work will be chopped into bite-size pieces so that the whole group of participants can be divided into small groups of ca. 2-4 people working on their own part of the assessment, where applicable. In the end all the different parts will be compiled into one complete assessment (description and evaluation) and scrutinized together as whole group. On the first day of the workshop there will also be some exercises on using the software tools, namely Mediawiki and Analytica, that will be used in the group work.

The daily workshop program will follow the same structure for the whole week:

• Morning session, incl. practical arrangements 9:00 - 11:45
• Lunch 11:45 - 12:45
• Afternoon session 12:45 - 16:45

Lecture and group work topics:

Social program

In addition to lectures and group-work, there will be a great social program, which may include e.g. the following (please add your own suggestions):

• downhill and cross-country skiing
• skating (Finland Ice Marathon in Kuopio 20.-24.2.)
• curling
• sauna with ice swimming and/or rolling in the snow (Smoke sauna evening on Tuesdays)
• specialties of Finnish cuisine (Traditional Finnish Dinner buffet after the Smoke sauna on Tuesdays)
• live music

Accommodation information

Due to unexpected demand of student apartments in Kuopio This year, it appears that the Kuopio student housing company is unable to provide their student apartments for our use during the workshop (with the exception that for Vlasta and Klinga, who have informed of their need to stay for 2 weeks in kuopio, we have been able to arrange student apartment rooms). Therefore, the accommodation for the workshop participants will be arranged through Hotel Savonia (see below for further information).

We have negotiated a reasonable agreement with Hotel Savonia for the workshop participants. The prices for Hotel Savonia are as follows (including breakfast buffet, free use of sauna + swimming pool and gym):

• 1 person room 75 €/night
• 2 person room 90 €/night

If staying in 2 person rooms and staying only for the duration of the workshop, the accommodation costs per person will not differ much from the originally planned student apartment accommodation option. However, staying in 1 person rooms or staying in Kuopio significantly longer than just for the workshop, the accommodation costs will unfortunately be higher than that originally planned.

If the recent changes in the accommodation organizations should for any reason should not suit you, please inform us as soon as possible and we will try to look for other options. It may also be possible to accommodate some of the participants in the Kuopio university guest rooms or other similar facilities.

Attendees

Please list your name and organisation here: (Requires login)

Locals (no accommodation needeed):

1. Juha Villman, KTL
2. Mikko Pohjola, KTL
3. Jouni Tuomisto, KTL
4. Päivi Meriläinen, KTL
5. Erkki Kuusisto, KTL
6. Anne Hæreid, University of Kuopio
7. Trisha Rytkönen, University Of Kuopio
8. Kwaku Oduro Lokko, University of Kuopio
9. Pauliina Ahtoniemi, University of Kuopio
10. Virpi Kollanus, KTL

Foreign (accommodation needed):

1. James Grellier, Imperial College London
2. Vlasta Svecova, IEM AS CR (accommodation from 11th to 23th February)
3. Nina Iszatt, Imperial College London
4. Kinga Lancz, Slovak medical university SR (accommodation from 11th to 22nd of February)
5. Lubica Palkovicova, Slovak medical university SR
6. Jana Tulinska, Slovak Medical University
7. Antonio Gasparrini, LSHTM, London
8. Danielle Vienneau, Imperial College London
9. Matteo Prandi, Hylobates Consulting Srl
10. Anne Knol, RIVM
11. Eva Kunseler, MNP