Abstract    The level of acceptability of risks associated with the health and life of people should strive for minimum values. However, the use of unreasonably low limits of acceptability results in the formation of impossible tasks due to socio-economic situation, industry specifity, the occurrence of unpredictable incidents and, accordingly, to the incorrect selection of priorities for preventive measures and violations in the risk management system.

The methodology is proposed for acceptable risk assessment based on statistical observations on employee injuries in the relevant economic sector, and the ratio of the number of non-removable identified hazards through labor protection measures to the number of identified hazards at the enterprise. This methodology was tested at the construction and processing industries using data from the enterprises on previously identified occupational hazards as part of the procedures for implementation of occupational health and safety management system.

In practice, various approaches are applied to risk assessment. For many of them, the acceptable risk determined by the proposed methodology can be used by way of ranking criterion as the limit of minimum field.

Proposed substantiation of acceptable occupational risk limits by assessment of the specifics of domestic industry and the field of production activities when used in ranking allows to correct the preventive occupational safety measures.