Risk occurs when a person is presented with a possibility of gaining or losing something. Whether they will win or lose is determined by the nature of the risk and its control. Values that could be lost in perilous situation include physical and mental health, social status, the emotional state of well-being, and financial wealth. Although the risk is closely connected with uncertainty, they are not one and the same. While uncertainty has a nature of unpredictability and uncontrollable outcome, the risk is consequently taken despite the uncertainty. There are several types of risks. Each type is identified by the practice area it is presented in.
Health risk or risk of compromising one’s physical or mental health occurs in hazardous situations. Health risk can be prevented by some measures which include primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. Each of the preventions has a purpose of reducing the present effects of a particular risk factor. While primary prevention requires the entire population to be informed about the risk factors, secondary and tertiary preventions are focused on a more in-depth analysis of the present risk factors that an individual patient has.
The health risk is often related to safety and environment. The reason for their connection lies within the risk events and their impact. A single risk event may affect health, safety, and environment at once. However, the impact that a single risk event has on all three areas of practice differs regarding duration. Safety and environment hazards resulted from a risk event take more time to develop and affect the population, while health hazards result in swifter consequences, although they may be less severe in the global perspective.
Other practice areas include economic risk, social risk, IT risk, financial risk, and a group of risks connected with the human factor. The human factor is viewed from the perspective of decision-making science and is connected with risks regarding behavioral and organizational patterns.