A hazard ratio is a way to evaluate the potential hazard of something compared to something else. One of the most common places where this is used is in the creation and testing of drugs. The pharmaceutical company may run a test to determine what type of impact a new drug has. This can be done to test its ability to accomplish a desired outcome as well as to determine what type of negative side effects it may have.
Scientists may have two groups of people (or lab animals) in the test. One of them gets the drug and the other gets a placebo. If they are trying to determine the risk of a negative side effect such as chest pain, they will compare how many people in the first group had chest pain compared to those in the second. If twice as many people in the first group experience chest pain during the study, the drug will have a hazard ratio of 2 for chest pain.
This concept can be used in many other areas as well. For example, you can look at how many more or fewer people experience an injury at work after taking some safety steps or adding a new machine. If more people are experiencing injuries, the hazard ratio will identify how many more it is. This can help you to determine what types of safety steps are most effective. You can also compare hazard ratios over time to establish trends that can be very helpful in determining the long-term safety of a facility.
Just keep in mind that a single area or item can have multiple different hazard ratios. For the drug example, there will be a hazard ratio for all the potential negative side effects, as well as at least one for the desired effect of the drug.
Similar Glossary Terms
- Fire Hazard
- Gap Analysis
- Risk Assessment
- Job Safety Analysis (JSA)
- Environmental Hazard
- Health Hazard
- FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis)
- Acute Toxicity
- 5Cs
