The better our understanding of exposures and the risks they pose, the more assurance we have that we are controlling the most important (highest risk) exposures first. Control efforts (such as engineering, work practice, or personal protective equipment) are often costly to implement and maintain. Therefore, it is critical that those efforts be appropriately prioritized, deployed, and managed.

Implementing a systematic exposure assessment and control process allows prioritization of exposure monitoring and control efforts to use limited funds wisely. The strategy is cyclic in nature and is used most effectively in an iterative manner that strives for continuous improvement (Ignacio and Bullock, 2006).