Risk-benefit assessment of foods

There is a growing need for risk-benefit assessments of foods, or components thereof, which may have health-threatening as well as health-promoting properties. The process of determining negative (risk) and positive (benefit) aspects consists of several steps. In collaboration with RIVM, the Office for Risk Assessment has designed a decision tree that describes the four steps and indicates when choices must be made in consultation with the risk manager. The four steps are: identification of negative and positive effects, estimation of exposure, characterisation of risk and benefit and integration of risk and benefit in a common measure. The introduction of specific ‘stops’ in the decision tree is innovative and indicates that it is not always necessary to carry out a full risk-benefit assessment. In this way, choices can be made in a transparent way. An example illustrates the use of the decision tree