| Markets | International |
| Organization | FAO |
| Topic | Trade, market and official controls |
The objective of this guidance is to provide direction to national food safety authorities on how to start ranking the public health risk posed by foodborne hazards and/or foods in their countries and how to use of risk ranking to identify which food safety issues have the greatest public health impact facilitates objective, evidence-based, transparent decision-making, and planning. The guidance focuses on the ranking of microbial and chemical hazards based exclusively on their impact on public health and represents the first step toward a systematic and evidence-based approach to identify the most significant risks in the area of food safety. The application of the proposed framework is illustrated by two hypothetical case studies, one microbial and another chemical. The guidance presents and describes in detail a ranking approach that is composed of three iterative steps:
1: Define the Scope
2: Develop the Approach
3: Conduct the Risk Ranking Analysis and Report Results.