The RISKcom project team has developed its mission around informing the population by providing credible information about a wide range of health risks; enable individuals to make informed choices about their health and safety; to participate meaningfully in decision-making processes; and to enable a broad range of population health risks to be put into perspective. RISKcom would like to assure its users that we intend to respect the following guidelines:

1. Accuracy and Currency of Information
2. Online Professionalism
3. Editorial Independence
4. Transparency
5. Anonymity
6. Conflict of Interest
7. Disclaimer of Liability
8. Statistics on Website Access
9. Surveys
10. RISKcom and Other Links
11. Copyright
12. Linking Policy
13. Shared Responsibility
            13.1 RISKcom
            13.2 Users

 1. Accuracy and Currency of Information

RISKcom will provide credible, reliable and up-to-date information. However, RISKcom cannot guarantee that information on the website is accurate or up-to-date. The project team commits to include, in its website, information on health risk issues that is easily understandable, reliable, well documented, peer-reviewed and available in a timely matter.  

2. Online Professionalism

The RISKcom project team is composed of a number of well-respected international professionals specialized in population health, risk assessment, risk management, risk communication, and risk perception. Those individuals are doctors, researchers, policy makers, scientists and professors involved in various research fields. Information posted on the site will be independent, unbiased, and reviewed by independent scientists who are member of a science panel. The science panel will be chaired by an experienced researcher in risk issues and will be comprised of researchers representing the broad health determinants as well as risk science. The science panel will adopt a rotating membership based on website needs. 

3. Editorial Independence

In order to fulfill its mission of disseminating credible information in terms of human health risk issues, RISKcom ensures that sponsors and partners are not involved in any ways in decision making regarding scientific content put on RISKcom. Sole responsibility for the content and direction of this project resides with the Project Team Leaders. No sponsor, funder, or any other party has reviewed or vetted in advance the material that appears on this site. Revenues coming from sponsors are solely used to support the website and its related activities.

Finally, RISKcom does not include on its website, any coverage, stories, articles related to publicity or journalism. Any talk about sponsors, partners, organizations or an association in content of the website RISKcom is done independently, that is, no funding by the organization in question was received and the related content was not submitted for approbation before being posted.
 
4. Transparency

In order to judge for yourself of the credibility of the site, RISKcom makes a commitment to include all the information pertinent to health risk issues summarized, RISKcom project team members, its partners as well as funding sources.

5. Anonymity

RISKcom makes a commitment to never collect, share and give your personal information without your consent beforehand. This information serves only to correspond with you and the RISKcom team and to improve the web site. RISKcom also makes a commitment not to use your personal information to send you correspondences or to communicate with you unless we have received your authorization.

6. Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest is a term used when a scientist, staff or member of the project team engaged in the conduct of the research or project, has a financial or other interest that could influence the scientist’s position with respect to the subject matter being considered  
An apparent conflict of interest exists when such an interest would not necessarily influence the scientist or the conduct of the study, but could result in the scientists’ objectivity. 

Different types of financial or other interests, whether personal or with the administrative unit with which the scientist has an employment relationship exists. RISKcom will declare any conflict of interest or potential conflict to its reader.

7. Disclaimer of Liability

The content and publications on the RISKcom website are made available for informational and educational purposes only. Information provided on the website should not replace the advice of a health care professional and judgment in any particular case. Always consult a qualified health care professional if you have any questions about your health. The McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, the University of Ottawa, and project team members are not legally responsible for anyone who takes information from this site as health advice.

8. Statistics on Website Hits

RISKcom keep on record statistics on website hits, based on pages and menus accessed by users. The users are identified by their computer IP address. This information is used to analyze activities of users in RISKcom.ca (pages and sections the most read, length of stay, country of users, etc..)

9. Surveys

RISKcom can obtain information from its users by surveys. The participation to these activities is always voluntary. We encourage individuals to participate to the surveys. Information collected is used to improve the website and better suit the needs of the website visitors as to the type of information available in the site.

10. RISKcom and Other Links

It is possible that RISKcom.ca contains links to other web sites. RISKcom is not responsible in terms of the content available on these sites. RISKcom recommends that you read carefully the Terms of use of each site.

11. Copyright

The copyright and other intellectual property rights of content available on this site are owned by the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment and its licensors. Canadian Copyright Act as well as other national and international laws protect the rights described here within. It is allowed to use, download, or print pages with content available on this site for non-commercial, personal use or individual research. However, written permission from the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment is mandatory to copy, reproduce, modify, translate, upload, republish or redistribute any material, including text and figures, from this web site. To obtain copyright permission, please contact the project team riskcom@uottawa.ca

12. Linking Policy

Linking to the riskcom.ca web site is possible by obtaining prior permission from the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa. In any way, you may not create links that could guide others to believe that content on riskcom.ca is your own or include a statement that we are endorsing your site.

13. Shared Responsibility

13.1 RISKcom

RISKcom greatly appreciates exchanging correspondence with its users. Your comments and suggestions are important to improve our web site. Don’t hesitate to take time to send us your comments and to inform us of any technical problems you can’t resolve at riskcom@uottawa.ca. All your comments will be considered and we promise a response in the shortest delay possible.

13.2 Users

When you access our site and you use the services offered, you are asked to respect the following rules:

1. Intellectual Property arising from work performed by RISKcom team members including but not limited to content, inventions, designs, drawings, information, and know-how, whether or not susceptible to patent protection or copyrights, shall belong to McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment. Non-authorized reproduction of partial or total content on RISKcom would be considered as an act of forgery.
   
   
2. It is forbidden to write messages to RISKcom that are abusive, insulting, degrading or not related any how to content or subjects discussed in the site.

Last Updated June 2, 2010