Risk assessment is a cornerstone of the European approach to prevent occupational accidents and ill health. European legislation with respect to risk assessment is grounded on the Framework Directive 89/391, which has been transposed into national legislation of member states. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) suggests a stepwise approach to risk assessment: 1) identifying hazards and those at risk; 2) evaluating and prioritizing risks; 3) deciding on preventive action; 4) taking action and 5) monitoring and reviewing. Clearly, the process of risk assessment builds on identifying hazards and the workers at risk in the initial step. However, in practice employers do not have the quantitative means to assess the occupational risk of individual workers other than their own experience. Since serious occupational accidents are rare events from the perspective of one single employer, it is unlikely that employers are able to accurately assess the occupational risk of an individual worker. An empirically based computer tool may therefore provide employers with the necessary information to reflect on their position in the risk distribution.
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