Swiss Federal Veterinary Office Risk Assessments: Advantages and Limitations of The Qualitative Method

Hauser, R.; Breidenbach, E.; Stärk, K. D. C.

doi:10.1007/978-0-8176-4542-7_32

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Qualitative RA provides a means to identify the risk pathway and the available and missing information, and is a first step towards any quantitative approach (Clough et al., 2006). It is less demanding in terms of resources, data or mathematical knowledge, and its output is easier to communicate and usually adequate for decision‐making (Hauser et al., 2007). However, assigning qualitative categories or combining them is done subjectively and there is no standardized method, which makes it difficult to compare RAs made in different settings or by different analysts (Hauser et al., 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is less demanding in terms of resources, data or mathematical knowledge, and its output is easier to communicate and usually adequate for decision‐making (Hauser et al., 2007). However, assigning qualitative categories or combining them is done subjectively and there is no standardized method, which makes it difficult to compare RAs made in different settings or by different analysts (Hauser et al., 2007). Nevertheless, assumptions and subjectivity also occur in quantitative RA when adjusting probability distributions to expert opinion or sparse data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Likelihoods were categorized as being negligible, very low, low, medium, high or very high. The uncertainties associated with the estimated likelihoods were categorized as low, medium or high depending on the reliability and agreement of the data sources (Hauser et al., 2007). Experts from ALP (http://www.agroscope.admin.ch), the Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene (http://www.ils.uzh.ch), the Federal Office for Public Health (http://www.bag.admin.ch), as well as the dairy industry, provided data and checked the progress of the RA.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The results were published and distributed among the concerned parties every year. The first RA, as well as the monitoring programme, has been further described in the literature (Brülisauer et al., 2005; Hauser et al., 2007). In 2007, FVO and ALP requested to update that RA in light of the available monitoring results, and to develop it further by considering production data and the possible consequences for consumers’ health.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Qualitative Risk Assessment Approach for Swiss Dairy Products: Opportunities and Limitations

González

Hartnack

Berger

et al. 2011

Zoonoses and Public Health

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Switzerland implemented a risk-based monitoring of Swiss dairy products in 2002 based on a risk assessment (RA) that considered the probability of exceeding a microbiological limit value set by law. A new RA was launched in 2007 to review and further develop the previous assessment, and to make recommendations for future risk-based monitoring according to current risks. The resulting qualitative RA was designed to ascertain the risk to human health from the consumption of Swiss dairy products. The products and microbial hazards to be considered in the RA were determined based on a risk profile. The hazards included Campylobacter spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, coagulase-positive staphylococci and Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin. The release assessment considered the prevalence of the hazards in bulk milk samples, the influence of the process parameters on the microorganisms, and the influence of the type of dairy. The exposure assessment was linked to the production volume. An overall probability was estimated combining the probabilities of release and exposure for each combination of hazard, dairy product and type of dairy. This overall probability represents the likelihood of a product from a certain type of dairy exceeding the microbiological limit value and being passed on to the consumer. The consequences could not be fully assessed due to lack of detailed information on the number of disease cases caused by the consumption of dairy products. The results were expressed as a ranking of overall probabilities. Finally, recommendations for the design of the risk-based monitoring programme and for filling the identified data gaps were given. The aims of this work were (i) to present the qualitative RA approach for Swiss dairy products, which could be adapted to other settings and (ii) to discuss the opportunities and limitations of the qualitative method.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Qualitative Risk Assessment Approach for Swiss Dairy Products: Opportunities and Limitations

González

Hartnack

Berger

et al. 2011

Zoonoses and Public Health

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“…The qualitative approach was chosen primarily because due to a lack of available quantitative data but it also provides a systematic determination of: the basic model structure, key input parameters and areas of data scarcity (Hauser et al, 2004;Clough et al, 2006;Peeler et al, 2007).…”

Section: Nipah Virus (Niv) (Genus Henipavirus) Is a Zoonotic Virus Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating risks to Australia of emergent henipaviruses

Breed¹

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A user-friendly decision support tool to assist one-health risk assessors

et al. 2021

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One-Health risk assessments are integral to developing efficient responses to disease threats, including global pandemics. However, short timeframes, inadequate disease-specific information and an insufficient skill-base make it hard for inexperienced assessors to distinguish between a large portfolio of approaches. The wrong choice can detract from the disease response. Here, we present an interactive decision support tool to help with this choice. A workshop with participants from diverse professional backgrounds provided six themes that should be considered when deciding on the best approach. Questions based on these themes were then developed to populate a decision tree which guides users to their most appropriate approach. One-Health risk assessment tools and literature were used as examples of the different approaches. The tool provides links to these examples and short descriptions of the approaches. Answers are easily changed, facilitating exploration though different approaches. The simple data structure of the tool means it is easy to update with more resources and approaches. It provides a valuable source of guidance and information for less experienced risk assessors.

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Swiss Federal Veterinary Office Risk Assessments: Advantages and Limitations of The Qualitative Method

Cited by 5 publications

References 2 publications

A Qualitative Risk Assessment Approach for Swiss Dairy Products: Opportunities and Limitations

A Qualitative Risk Assessment Approach for Swiss Dairy Products: Opportunities and Limitations

Investigating risks to Australia of emergent henipaviruses

A user-friendly decision support tool to assist one-health risk assessors

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