Personal protective equipment

The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, electrical, heat, chemical, biohazards, and airborne particulate matter.

Protective equipment may be worn for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, as well as for sports and other recreational activities.

Any of these can discourage wearers from using PPE correctly, therefore placing them at risk of injury, ill-health or, under extreme circumstances, death.

Good ergonomic design can help to minimise these barriers and can therefore help to ensure safe and healthy working conditions through the correct use of PPE.

[2] In more recent years, scientific personal protective equipment is generally believed to have begun with the cloth facemasks promoted by Wu Lien-teh in the 1910–11 Manchurian pneumonic plague outbreak, although some doctors and scientists of the time doubted the efficacy of facemasks in preventing the spread of that disease since they didn't believe it was transmitted through the air.

More breathable types of personal protective equipment may not lead to more contamination but do result in greater user satisfaction.

One type of respirator functions by filtering out chemicals and gases, or airborne particles, from the air breathed by the user.

[5] In work environments, respirators are relied upon when adequate ventilation is not available or other engineering control systems are not feasible or inadequate.

[5] In the United Kingdom, an organization that has extensive expertise in respiratory protective equipment is the Institute of Occupational Medicine.

This expertise has been built on a long-standing and varied research programme that has included the setting of workplace protection factors to the assessment of efficacy of masks available through high street retail outlets.

[5] The National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL) of NIOSH is tasked towards actively conducting studies on respirators and providing recommendations.

[11] Physical agents such as extreme temperatures and ultraviolet or solar radiation can be damaging to the skin over prolonged exposure.

This could be remedied by incoming groups of farm workers receiving video and in-person training on HRI prevention.

These educational programs for farm workers are most effective when they are based on health behavior theories, use adult learning principles and employ train-the-trainer approaches.

Workers who are regularly exposed to noise levels above the NIOSH recommendation should be provided with hearing protection by the employers, as they are a low-cost intervention.

Studies performed on the injuries of professional athletes, such as that on NFL players,[20][21] question the effectiveness of existing personal protective equipment.

[22] The failure to use condoms by adult film stars was a violation of Cal/OSHA's Blood borne Pathogens Program, Personal Protective Equipment.

[22] This example shows that personal protective equipment can cover a variety of occupations in the United States, and has a wide-ranging definition.

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2022 defines personal protective equipment as Equipment for use in preventing spread of disease, such as by exposure to infected individuals or contamination or infection by infectious material (including nitrile and vinyl gloves, surgical masks, respirator masks and powered air purifying respirators and required filters, face shields and protective eyewear, surgical and isolation gowns, and head and foot coverings) or clothing, and the materials and components thereof, other than sensors, electronics, or other items added to and not normally associated with such personal protective equipment or clothing.

It covers "any device or appliance designed to be worn or held by an individual for protection against one or more health and safety hazards".

The European Commission additionally allowed for a transition period until 30 June 1995 to give companies sufficient time to adapt to the legislation.

[4] There is low certainty evidence that supports making improvements or modifications to PPE in order to help decrease contamination.

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents wearing Level B hazmat suits
Safety equipment and supervisor instructions at a construction site
A 1568 painting depicting beekeepers in protective clothing, by Pieter Brueghel the Elder .
Air-purifying respirator
N95 mask
A man wearing a white lab coat reaches over a beaker containing white powder on a balance
A worker wearing a respirator , lab coat , and gloves while weighing carbon nanotubes
A closeup of a person's arm requing into a bucket filled with a black material
This is an incorrect use of personal protective equipment, because the gap between the glove and the lab coat exposes the wrist to hazardous materials.
A paintball player wearing appropriate eye protection against impact
A PPE station, containing eye protection and earplugs , as well as a place to dispose of dirty glasses.
Locker containing personal protective equipment
A complete PPE ensemble worn during high pressure cleaning work
Two paramedics wearing medical PPE gowns outdoors.
Medical PPE gowns worn by medical personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic
Workers using personal protective equipment while painting poles. While basic head protection is present, no engineering fall protection systems appear to be in place.