Risk Assessment, Cost-Benefit Analysis and Knowledge Management in Food Safety Risk Analysis: An Economist’s Perspective on Tools for Decision Making

Risk analysis is the framework for decision makers and regulators to use risk assessment, risk management, costbenefit analysis (CBA), and risk communication in order to reduce the public impact of risks, especially, health and safety risks. The primary mission of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) is to protect the public health by ensuring that food is safe. Decision makers rely on a risk analysis framework to evaluate risk management options for implementing food safety programs and policies. The standard paradigm states that risk analysis is made up of three components: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. It is also argued that components should be kept separate in the interest of scientific integrity and to make sure results are not affected by political pressure. However, it is important to maintain interaction among the different components of risk analysis so that the risk assessment along with the CBA can aid risk management in decision making. CBA needs to be part of risk analysis.