What is the term for the process of identifying potential hazards in the workplace?

• A. Incident investigation
• B. Safety audit
• C. Risk management
• D. Hazard assessment

Answer: (D)

Identifying potential hazards before they cause harm is the focus here. Hazard assessment is a proactive step in safety management that involves looking at the workplace, tasks, equipment, and materials to spot things that could go wrong. It’s about recognizing what could cause injury or damage so you can plan controls before an incident occurs. This often includes methods like inspections, job safety analyses, and worker input to uncover risks such as unguarded machines, slippery floors, or awkward lifting tasks.

This term is distinct from incident investigation, which examines what happened after an incident to understand causes; and a safety audit, which reviews compliance and how safety programs are functioning. It’s also different from risk management as a whole, which covers assessing and prioritizing risks and implementing broader strategies. Hazard assessment specifically targets the identification of possible hazards and the early stage of addressing them.