Identifying Product-Safety Priorities

Establishing priorities in dealing with regulatory problems requires a keen insight into the problem, a knowledge of the technical state of the art, and a calibrated eye toward the benefits that can accrue from alternative actions. In matters of health, there is an additional factor: the willingness of consumers to accept risk in using a product. This paper describes an orderly procedure for developing quantitative and qualitative factors involved in setting priorities for establishing product-safety standards. The factors specifically identified and examined in this paper include frequency of injury, severity of injury, product exposure, likelihood of regulatory “success,” cost of regulatory action, benefit due to elimination of injuries, and the citizen's willingness to incur risks. Quantification of several of these factors is already possible. Others require the systematic application of available techniques. A start has been made in quantification of risk, but applied research is needed before the techniques can be employed. Numerical examples are included for various consumer-product categories.