We should be! But in most discussions they usually get mixed up with risks. It should be the basis of our profession to know the occupational health and safety hazards,and to identify and advise on their controls.

Paul There is often some confusion between the related principles of hazards, risks, tasks, outcomes etc. It really does often come down to nothing more than semantics. A hazard is tangible, such as electricity, if you come into contact with the hazard then you are likely to get hurt or worse - simples. A risk is the probability of coming into contact with the hazard, with or without some form of protection ie PPE, combined with the severity of the contact with the hazard; which using electricity as an example, could be a minor burn/shock to a fatality.

Try to keep it simple when defining: Hazard - something with the potential to cause harm or if they need something more specific: Hazard - a physical situation with a potential for human injury, damage to property, damage to the environment or some combination of these

The example I teach is... Hazard - Damaged electrical cable Danger - electrocution Risk - Severe (a product of "Very likely" and "fatal")

Thanks for your interesting posts. I think that the usual definition of "anything with the potential to harm" is a problem because hazard is contextual. I appreciate the risk assessment process is the means to quantify the significance of the hazard but wonder if this definition is too open ended? Recognising when an object is a hazard agent is as important as defining hazards as a hazard is related to the way in which the hazard can be released. I think that what we are usually asking people to identify is not actually the hazards (whats) but rather the means (hows)? I remember first being taught the concept of hazard and risk as a tiger in a cage being a potential hazard (leaving the cage unlocked being the unsafe act!). I think sometimes in the workplace when something goes wrong the "zoo keeper" gets reminded about what he already knows and the "lunch" gets the blame for not recognising the tiger was dangerous - avoiding the root of the problem?

The tiger is hazard! The cage is a control measure! The cage was installed when a risk assessment showed that without one the risk of someone being mauled was high and the severity of injury severe to fatal.

It's something I've often grappled with, and when you think about it it's amusing that after all these years this is still a very pertinent question. I think that the problem with the phrase 'potential to cause harm' is that people automatically start thinking about the degree of risk - which we prefer to relate to strength of controls etc. I prefer to think of a hazard as being an activity/situation which can 'harm to any extent'. When we do an initial 'ranking of hazards' this will be done on the extent of the harm: death, major injury etc. The 'potential' is given a score/ranking on the risk side of the equation. Although it can be confusing (because clearly for people to consider hazards in the first place there needs to be, in common parlance, a 'risk') I still think it's a useful exercise to break the two down...so I don't like using the word 'potential'! Kevin

It's interesting all this. I'm in the final stages of a Dip in Risk Management, and in no other area of risk is the term hazard used much, if at all, only in OH&S. BS ISO 31000 defines risk 'the impact of uncertainty on objectives', but makes no mention of hazard, even though OH&S risk management is explicitly included in there. For the risk registers we use at work, the non-OH&S ones that is, I have borrowed a freely available format from the internet which uses a standard risk phrase: 'the problem is x caused by y resulting in z'. this can be used perfectly in a OH&S setting, and all mention of hazards disappears. Leads to much clearer thinking, John

Dear all, The problem with hazard is that it is a high level abstraction. Consider a brick; is a brick a hazard? It is an inanimate object with no will of its own. It cannot move, but it can kill if I throw it your head or drop it on you. Therefore it is not the brick that is the hazard but the event of me dropping on you or throwing the brick at you. Going back to the tiger, if the tiger is the hazard and not the event of the tiger getting out or the event of you getting in the cage, consider the control options that are missed. In the first case you forget to close the door, because the item of focus is the tiger, and not the tiger getting out, and in the second case, knock out the tiger or put a barrier between you and it. Regarding the fragile roof, as you quite rightly state the hazard is walking on it; the risk of injury being dependant how far and on what you fall! My view is that a risk assessment is an a priori accident investigation i.e an investigation before the fact and the hazard identification is the scenario setting aspect. The risk assessment being the evaluation of outcomes and how likely they are to occur, given that the hazard is realised (i.e. the event occurs.) It should be not forgotten that risk assessment is a process to identify the measures to prevent risk, protect individuals and comply with the law. If Risk is the probability/possibility of harm, and hazard is an event causing harm then risk = P(O/E) i.e. Probability of outcome given event. This is also consistent with the definition of risk used by the courts. Regards

Simon Whilst I empathise with your comments and agree the process of identifying a hazard should be relatively easy for a h&s practitioner, it is simply a case that many wish to put their own slant on it. As my previous post indicates, it is really a matter of semantics in most cases...we are all saying much the same thing but in different ways. God only knows how many comments it would take to resolve if it was a really complicated subject! Time to move me thinks.

Honestly, I think BSi & ISO have it right, and HSE are just causing confusion. Forget the idea of hazard. Risk is the 'effect of uncertainty on objectives' (ISO Guide 73 as reflected in BS ISO 31000), if your objective is occupational safety and health then what are the uncertainties in your workplace (the things which you cannot manage or which are inadequately managed) and what effects are they likely to have. ISO Guide 73 talks about the 'source' of risk, which is the nearest it gets to a hazard, but source is a much wider category than hazard, and explicitly encompasses behaviours as well as physical things. It works, hazard isn't really necessary, and the extent to which seriously well qualified, intelligent and experienced practitioners can differ on what is a hazard only illustrates the extent to which HSE has cast dust in people's eyes here, John

It is interesting that OSHA do not have regulations for Risk Assessment in the USA, they have Job Hazard Analysis.

I was taught that to define a hazrad you had to state the harm that would result. I often find now many refer to the harm as a risk e.g. there is a risk of drowning in deep water. I prefer to say that drowning in water is the hazard and then keep risk for the probability that this will happen. In my view this helps you focus on the controls.