What is Hazard Identification?
Hazard identification (often referred to as Hazard ID) is one of the initial steps in a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). After the problem formulation which may include discussion of the venues, situations and problems to be addressed, the list of hazards associated with these problems needs to be articulated. For QMRA the Hazard ID comprises general information about the microbial agent (pathogens) and the adverse consequences to the host from infection and incorporates a wide array of information about the infectious agents. A microorganism that can infect host organisms and reproduces is associated with an endpoint of infection and may cause asymptomatic infections without disease (% without asymptomatic rates) . The disease and the disease process itself can be described quantitatively, which includes, latency, incubation times, duration of infectiousness and disease, % of cases with various symptomology, excretion rates (see Exposure) and immunity (eg. time for immunity to wane; % immune in adult population; seroprevalence; vaccination rate). Other key quantitative data included in Hazard ID are case fatality ratios.