<title>Possible roles for quantitative risk assessment (QRA) in the field of health care and health care regulation</title>

Abstract

The discipline of risk assessment has developed primarily over the last two decades out of two principal public fears -- radiation and cancer. As a discipline, it has become an integral part of regulatory reform and management science. Three different cultures have been the primary practitioners of the risk analysis discipline: (1) engineers as applied to engineered systems, (2) health scientists primarily in relation to environmental impacts, and (3) social scientists with respect to public participation and societal threats. The engineers and physical scientists have been the most active in developing the discipline of probabilistic risk assessment -- or, as it is increasingly referred to, quantitative risk assessment (QRA). It is QRA that has been our field of interest for the past two decades. The purpose of this summary is to define QRA, suggest a possible role in the health care field, and to make some observations about QRA, health care, and government regulations.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.