An improved method for qualitative risk assessment - validation and application to a bee pest

A consensus-based import risk assessment approach was developed combining methods applied in the fields of plant health and animal health. It provides (1) an overall risk score per risk pathway and (2) the possibility to rank risk factors between pathways in absence of quantitative data. This method was applied to assess the risk of entry of a bee pest. Expert elicitation sessions were run as is done for the evaluation of the probability of entry performed in pest risk assessments of invasive species in the plant health field and an overall risk score for each pathway was determined by combining risk scores per pathway using acombination matrix used in animal health risk assessment. Validation of this improved method was performed by comparing the determined overall risk scores with overall risk scores that the individual experts assigned at the beginning of the process based on their personal experience and knowledge.