Setting Standards: A Systematic Approach to Managing Public Health and Safety Risks

Article Abstract:

Standards are an effective means for managing hazardous technologies only if three conditions are satisfied: (a) setting general standards is preferable to case-by-case decision making; (b) some general safety philosophy, balancing risk and other factors, can be justified on normative grounds; (c) that philosophy is faithfully translated into operational terms. In practice, standards are rarely developed and enforced in an integrated systematic way. As a result, they often miss their mark. This guide presents a general framework for the design, development, and implementation of safety standards. The framework is derived from the logical character of the standard setters' task and from experience with actual standards. It first identifies the conditions under which standards are an appropriate management tool. Second, it presents four generic methods that may be used to develop safety policy. Third, it characterizes the design issues that arise in making that policy operational. At each step, it suggests particular strategies along with their inherent strengths and weaknesses. In particular, it shows the sensitivity of a standard's effectiveness to seemingly technical aspects of the way it is drafted (Reprinted by Permission of Publisher.)

Laws, regulations and rules, Standard, Standardization, Management, Cost benefit analysis, Analysis, Government Regulation, Tutorial, Decision Models, Risk Analysis

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Filtering: An Approach to Generating the Information Base for Collective Choice

Article Abstract:

An approach is given for generating the information base for collective choice and comparing it with the social preference approach. The framework is called filtering. It rejects the requirement for a social preference (optimization) function as a necessary condition for collective choice. Filtering increases the likelihood of identifying and-or generating collective agreement while minimizing the use of misinformation. The purpose of filtering is to contribute to the process of reaching collective agreement on proposed plans. It responds to a society characterized by diversity, localized and individuals' interests and is concerned with possible negative consequences of actions as well as benefits. People may be more threat-oriented than opportunity-oriented.

Management science, Decision theory, Optimization, Decision Making, Operations Research, Filtering

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