Abstract
Food safety is important not only for the people’s general health and daily life, economic development, and social stability but also for the government’s and country’s image. Microbiological and chemical contamination in food is a major cause of illnesses. Food-borne disease remains a real and formidable problem in both developed and developing countries, causing great human suffering and significant economic losses. New science-based approaches to food safety provide an effective way for governments to protect consumers against food-borne disease and plan appropriate response measures when necessary. Risk assessment is a structured science-based process to estimate the likelihood and severity of risk with attendant uncertainty. For risk assessment many organizations recognize four major elements: hazard identification; exposure assessment; dose–response assessment or hazard characterization; and risk characterization. Risk assessment can be descriptive or narrative, qualitative, semi-quantitative, or quantitative. Both qualitative and quantitative risk assessments are important in different circumstances. Food safety risk assessments are undertaken in response to identified chemical or microbial risks to human health. Chemical risk assessments focus on the presence of chemicals such as food additives, food contaminants, or residues of veterinary drugs. A microbial risk assessment evaluates the likelihood of adverse human health effects occurring after exposure to a pathogenic microorganism or to the medium in which the organism occurs. Activities within risk assessment focus on estimating the risk that a hazardous event or factor will negatively affect a population or subpopulation. This chapter deals with the food safety risk assessment process. It introduces a range of techniques that can be used to support risk assessment in practice and outlines the essential characteristics of a good risk assessment.
Keywords
- Risk Characterization
- Quantitative Risk Assessment
- Hazard Identification
- Risk Management Decision
- Food Safety Regulator
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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- ICMSF:
-
International Commission on Microbiological Specification for Foods
- MRM:
-
Microbial Risk Management
- SPS:
-
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
- CCFH:
-
Codex Committee and Food Hygiene
- CAC:
-
Codex Alimentarius Commission
- USNACMCF:
-
United States National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods
References
Anon (2006) Food safety risk analysis: a guide for national food safety authorities. FAO food and nutrition paper 87. WHO/FAO, Rome
CAC/GL 30 (1999) Principles and guidelines for the conduct of microbiological risk assessment
ICMSF (2002) Microorganisms in foods. 7. Microbiological testing in food safety management. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York
ICMSF (2005) Microorganisms in foods. 6. Microbial ecology of food commodities. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York
Leistner L, Gould GW (2001) Hurdle technology: combination treatment for food stability, safety and quality. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York
USNACMCF (US National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods) (2004) Response to the questions posed by FSIS regarding performance standards with particular reference to raw ground chicken, Atlanta, GA, USA
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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Masood, F., Aiman, S.U., Khan, S., Lone, S.A., Malik, A. (2014). Recent Approaches in Risk Assessment of Foods. In: Malik, A., Erginkaya, Z., Ahmad, S., Erten, H. (eds) Food Processing: Strategies for Quality Assessment. Food Engineering Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1378-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1378-7_11
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