Which statement best describes hazard identification in risk assessment?

• A. Hazard identification defines potential harms associated with a substance without quantifying exposure or risk.
• B. Hazard identification determines the dose-response curve.
• C. Hazard identification quantifies exposure levels in populations.
• D. Hazard identification integrates all data to describe risk.

Answer: (A)

Hazard identification focuses on recognizing what kinds of adverse effects a substance could cause, based on evidence from toxicology, epidemiology, and related studies, without deciding how much exposure leads to those effects. It sets out the potential harms and their nature, not the amount of exposure or the overall risk. That’s why the best description is defining potential harms associated with a substance without quantifying exposure or risk. The other concepts belong to later steps: dose–response assessment looks at the relationship between dose and effect, exposure assessment estimates how much people are exposed, and risk characterization combines all data to describe the overall risk.