Risk Assessment: Putting a Price on Human Life

Risk Assessment: Putting a Price on Human Life

Thesis: In the area of risk assessment society struggles, sometimes irrationally, with the value of human life, hoping someday to reach a reasonable balance between cost and effect of saving lives.

From the day that each person is born, there is only one fate that everybody can be sure of: some day s/he is going to die. No one can know exactly how or when that is going to happen. Unlike the certainty of death, no one can predict if that newly born individual seeing the outside world for the first time is going to be rich, pretty or happy. Nobody can say if that person is going to get married some day and raise children. The only conclusion that all can reach with absolute assurance is that this child is predestined, like all living creatures in this world, to die some day.

In spite of the inevitability of death, it is amazing to see how hard society and individuals try to avoid this unavoidable destiny. Life is customarily considered of utmost value for every one. But at the same time people put their lives in danger each day, actually, several times a day. From the time one gets up in the morning and turns on the light, s/he is exposed to the risk of electrocution that claims 500 lives each year in the U.S. alone (Wilson, 1979). Taking a shower in the morning brings the risk of a fall and cranial trauma that is responsible for five of each 100,000 deaths in the U.S. each year (Viscusi, Vernon and Harrington 1992). The breakfast in the U.S. commonly sets unhealthful food on the table, rich in fat or sodium both elements responsible for a large amount of heart disease, the number one cause of death in the world. Driving to work, taking a bus or riding a bicycle all contain ri...

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