A safety-hierarchy-of-controls is a structured decision framework used in occupational safety to prioritize risk mitigation measures by their effectiveness. It ranks controls from most to least protective: elimination of the hazard, substitution with a less hazardous alternative, engineering controls that isolate people from the hazard, administrative controls that change work practices, and personal protective equipment that protects the worker. The hierarchy serves safety-management by providing a systematic approach to selecting interventions, with higher-order controls offering greater reliability and independence from human behavior. [formal: gradus | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
safety-hierarchy-of-controls
A safety-hierarchy-of-controls is a structured decision framework used in occupational safety to prioritize risk mitigation measures by their effectiveness. It ranks controls from most to least protective: elimination of the hazard, substi…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made risk-mitigation framework that ranks control measures by effectiveness: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment. Built to persist through safety standards, training, and regulatory practice.
Names and aliases
- safety-hierarchy-of-controlsen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cms9293jz002i7skq3m4d9hr1SERVES →
The hierarchy of controls is a designed framework for selecting and implementing safety measures. Its purpose is to serve safety-management by providing the structured decision logic that managers use to control risk. It exists for the sake of safety management, not because management needs it to operate at all.
- cmsacr67d03dp7skqhmbwormoINSTANCE_OF →
A safety-hierarchy-of-controls is a specific kind of risk-control: it is the systematic ranking of control measures (elimination → substitution → engineering → administrative → PPE) by effectiveness, making it a structured instance of risk-control.
- cmsaxfaci00m382b66qazgiusINSTANCE_OF →
safety-hierarchy-of-controls IS a specific kind of safety-prevention: a framework that ranks control measures by their effectiveness in preventing harm. Law 9: a competent speaker would call the hierarchy-of-controls a prevention strategy/framework. Specific→general, nearest kind is safety-prevention. This corrects the mistaken DEPENDS_ON direction from the Ezra filing.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 1, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC
- Content hash
- e082c00e22ed7dad6ece32e57f1915175e55e091cf3109e70ecaf789b27374cf