What Is The Difference Between A Hazard And A Risk At Work?

A hazard is a situation which poses a level of threat to life, health, property or environment. Most hazards are dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk of harm, however, once a hazard becomes 'active', it can create an emergency situation.  A hazard is usually used to describe a potentially harmful situation, although not usually the event itself - once the incident has started it is classified as an emergency or incident. There are a number of modes for a hazard, which include: 

 
• Dormant - The situation has the potential to be hazardous, but no people, property or environment is currently affected by this. For instance, a hillside may be unstable, with the potential for a landslide, but there is nothing below or on the hillside which could be affected. 
• Potential - Also known as 'Armed', this is a situation where the hazard is in the position to affect persons, property or environment. This type of hazard is likely to require further risk assessment. 
• Active - The hazard is certain to cause harm, as no intervention is possible before the incident occurs. 
• Mitigated - A potential hazard has been identified, but actions have been taken in order to ensure it does not become an incident. This may not be an absolute guarantee of no risk, but it is likely to have been undertaken to significantly reduce the danger.
 
•   By its nature, a hazard involves something which could potentially be harmful to a person's life, health, property or to the environment. There are a number of methods of classifying a hazard, but most systems use some variation on the factors of Likelihood of the hazard turning into an incident and the Seriousness of the incident if it were to occur.  A common method is to score both likelihood and seriousness on a numerical scale (with the most likely and most serious scoring highest) and multiplying one by the other in order to reach a comparative score.  Risk = Likelihood of Occurrence x Seriousness if incident occurred.  This score can then be used to identify which hazards may need to be mitigated. A low score on likelihood of occurrence may mean that the hazard is dormant, whereas a high score would indicate that it may be an Active hazard.
 
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  Risk is a concept that denotes the precise probability of specific eventualities. Technically, the notion of risk is independent from the notion of value and, as such, eventualities may have both beneficial and adverse consequences. However, in general usage the convention is to focus only on potential negative impact to some characteristic of value that may arise from a future event.  RISK can be defined as “the threat or probability that an action or event, will adversely or beneficially affect an organisation's ability to achieve its objectives”[1]. In simple terms risk is ‘Uncertainty of Outcome’, either from pursuing a future positive opportunity, or an existing negative threat in trying to achieve a current objective.    There are many definitions of risk that vary by specific application and situational context. One is that risk is an issue, which can be avoided or mitigated (wherein an issue is a potential problem that has to be fixed now.) Risk is described both qualitatively and quantitatively. In some texts risk is described as a situation which would lead to negative consequences.

Hazard: Inherant property of a person, object, substance etc, that has the potential to cause harm. I.e. Something we cannot alter.  Risk: The liklihood/ probability that the hazard will lead to injury of some kind. An analysis of the hazard, in terms of the environement and people it interacts with (i.e things we can alter AROUND the hazard) lead the way to risk assessement.

A hazard is something tangible like an obstacle.
A risk is based on chance and circumstances and can be estimated.

A hazard is deadly and a risk can hurt you but not kill you like a electrical shock