Chapter 1What is a risk analysis?
A main objective of a risk analysis is to describe risk, that is, to present an informative risk picture. Figure 1.1 illustrates important building blocks of such a risk picture. Located at the centre of the figure is the initiating event (the hazard, the threat, the opportunity), which we denote by 
. In the example, the event is that a person (John) contracts a specific disease. An important task in the risk analysis is to identify such initiating events. In our example, we may be concerned about various diseases that could affect the person. The left side of the figure illustrates the causal picture that may lead to the event 
. The right side describes the possible consequences of 
.
Figure 1.1 Example of a bow-tie.
On the left side are barriers that are introduced to prevent the event 
from occurring; these are the probability reducing or preventive barriers. Examples of such barriers are medical check-ups/examinations, vaccinations and limiting ...
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