hazardcentric

Hazardcentric is an adjective used in safety science and risk management to describe an approach that centers on hazards as the primary object of analysis in risk assessment and mitigation. In hazard-centric thinking, hazards—the potential sources of harm—are identified, characterized, and prioritized before considering exposures, vulnerabilities, or assets. This perspective aims to systematically catalogue possible adverse events, assess the severity of harm and the likelihood of occurrence, and then apply controls according to the hierarchy of controls, ideally at the source of the hazard.

The term is commonly used in process safety, industrial hygiene, environmental risk assessment, and disaster risk reduction. It is often contrasted with risk-centric or asset-centric approaches that begin with risk scenarios tied to specific assets, systems, or vulnerabilities. In practice, hazard-centric analyses may be integrated with risk-based methods, such as a hazard identification phase followed by quantitative or semi-quantitative risk characterization.

Advantages of hazard-centric analysis include a focus on preventing root causes and ensuring that critical failure modes are addressed early in design and operation. Critics, however, argue that hazards do not fully determine risk without considering exposure, likelihood, and system resilience; therefore, hazard-centric methods should be complemented by exposure assessment and scenario analysis. Common applications and related practices include process hazard analysis (PHA), HAZOP studies, HACCP in food safety, and safety-by-design approaches.