Concepts of risk: An interdisciplinary review - Part 1: Disciplinary risk concepts

Risks, from natural or human sources, shape our physical, natural, and human environments. Most people demand healthy and safe products, trust that technologies that are meant to serve them do not act against their vital interests, and expect regulatory agencies to reduce risks to levels deemed tolerable by the majority of people. However, the scientific foundation for understanding and controlling risks is still far from being established. The main reason for this open situation is the multidisciplinary nature of risk. Risk means something different in the natural, engineering, psychological, social, and cultural disciplines. The first part of this review is an attempt to summarize the main disciplinary approaches to understanding and analyzing risk. it also seeks to provide some overarching categories that may help risk professionals in the academic and practical (risk management) fields to familiarize themselves with the fragmented field of risk studies and approaches, and to use the insights from these approaches in a more coherent and consistent fashion.