Avertances

Avertances is a term used in some interdisciplinary discussions of risk, safety, and resilience to describe mechanisms, actions, or conditions that prevent or lessen the impact of potential harms before they occur. The concept encompasses structural, procedural, and behavioral elements that collectively reduce exposure to negative outcomes in a system or process.

The word is formed from avert, meaning to turn away or prevent, and the suffix -ance, indicating a state or quality. It has appeared in scattered theoretical writings since the late 20th century, often in contexts where emphasis is placed on proactive protection rather than reactive response. Because it lacks a single, standardized definition, different authors may stress different aspects of avertances depending on the domain.

Avertances can be categorized along several dimensions. Structural avertances refer to physical or organizational features such as barriers, redundancies, safety interlocks, or architectural choices that reduce risk. Procedural avertances include checklists, standards, protocols, and monitoring regimes that guide safe action. Behavioral avertances involve individual or collective risk awareness, training, and voluntary precautions that lower the likelihood of harm. In practice, avertances are evaluated by comparing the expected loss with and without the preventive measures, often using a cost-benefit or risk-modeling framework to estimate avertance effectiveness and avertance cost.

Applications of avertances appear in design of safety-critical systems, urban resilience planning, public health campaigns, and cybersecurity, where proactive safeguards are prioritized, and in risk assessments that seek to quantify the preventive value of various measures. Critics note that avertances can blur with related concepts like mitigation and resilience, and that their measurement can be uncertain or context-dependent.

See also: risk management, resilience, prevention, mitigation, safety engineering.