Classification of risk acceptability and risk tolerability factors in occupational health and safety

Risks are omnipresent in most human activities. Risk analysis helps to establish the level of risk of a given situation, and to determine if the risk is acceptable, tolerable or unacceptable. At this stage, the consideration of individual or societal factors becomes very important in the decision-making process regarding the acceptability or the tolerability of a risk. In the occupational health and safety (OHS) field, these factors are often implicit and poorly defined. In this work, the risk acceptability influential factors in the domain of OHS are indexed, and a typology of these factors is suggested. In total, 8 parameters regrouping 19 criteria and 14 variables that influence the risk acceptability process are presented, and their scope in OHS is discussed.