Page 26 - Occupational Health & Safety, November 2018

RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
Three Trends Impacting the Respiratory Market
New and innovative PAPR products are increasing user acceptance and protecting workers better.
BY RICK MARQUEZ
Workplace safety has experienced many changes in recent years—from train- ing/education, site monitoring, and remote and real-time data collection to global-wide adoption of safer work techniques driven by regulation, societal expectations, and, im- portantly, improvements in PPE and safety equip- ment. The message is clear: Workplace safety is good for the workers and makes more efficient, profitable, and productive businesses.
Our workers deserve and expect a safe workplace. For employers or safety officers this is not always easy, and there can be considerable challenges for compli- ance and making suitable equipment available. For- tunately, the knowledge base of workplace safety and personal protective equipment (PPE) is growing, driv- en by committed organizations such as OSHA, CDC/ NIOSH, ISEA, industry, and PPE manufacturers. One area that has recently had considerable change is re- spiratory protection.
Until last year, most respirators still had similarity to original patented products from the 1800s. While filter media have improved and plastics and other ma- terials for facepieces have evolved, we haven’t really seen anything dramatically different in many years. However, while there has been low innovation in the product category, we saw a spike each year in the number of respirator brands develop in the N95 dis- posable category. In the 1980s, ’90s, and early 2000s, there were quite a few well-known respirator manu- facturers. Over the past five to 10 years, many of these
brands have been acquired by larger brands, thus lim- iting the big well-known brands to a few household names. This has come at an expense to workers, with limited if any true innovation.
For too long, employers and their teams have had to endure the expense, discomfort, and limited pro- tection of the N95 disposable mask and traditional APR. Industries were overdue for personal devices with high levels of protection that are comfortable to wear and easily deployable, even over the largest op- erations. Modern technology and smart design, like that in mobile phones, has enabled significant min- iaturization and an equally significant increase in performance. In an industry that has not seen much innovation in decades, we introduced NIOSH-ap- proved powered respirators that are revolutionary in respiratory protection; we also saw three significant changes in the various industries that are renewing interest in outfitting employees with better respira- tory equipment.
Increased Need for Protection for First Responders and Health Care Professionals Driven by the emergence of bioterrorism, infectious disease pandemics, and ever-present illicit fentanyl used in illegal drug manufacturing, health care and law enforcement personnel are faced with life-threat- ening risks from inhalation of unknown toxins and biohazards. First responders and health care workers’ health and safety is paramount in responding, con- taining, and protecting the community.
Infection control is also among the priorities for respiratory protection for pandemic airborne diseases such as avian influenza, MERS, or measles, tubercu- losis, and other aerosol transmissible diseases (or a specimen suspected of containing an aerosol trans- missible pathogen in a laboratory, such as anthrax). Until proven otherwise by diagnostic testing, the patients (and any biological samples from those pa- tients) should be managed as being a potential source of aerosol transmissible disease. As a result, health care facilities, laboratories, and first responders have begun evaluating a wholesale change to Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPR).
Choosing to wear an air-powered respirator in- stead of a surgical mask, N95, or APR is based on a hazard analysis of workers’ specific work environ- ments and the need to significantly reduce the risk of infectious disease transmission between infected and non-infected persons. Air-powered respirators
22 Occupational Health & Safety | NOVEMBER 2018
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