Page 39 - Occupational Health & Safety, January/February 2020

ments of ISO/IEC 17025:2017, General requirements for the com- petence of testing and calibration laboratories. Copies of ANSI/ ISEA 105-20163 and ANSI/ISEA 138-20194 are available from ISEA and from ANSI’s licensed resellers.
In addition, ISEA produced a white paper offering guidance on selecting impact-resistant hand protection to help companies and safety professionals understand the problem, explore contributing factors, and consider prevention and protection options. It explains the ANSI/ISEA 138-2019 industry standard, the three performance levels of hand-impact gloves, and provides links to a helpful list of PPE providers participating in ISEA’s Hand Protection Group. The resource is free to download: ISEA White Paper—Selecting the Best Impact-Resistant Hand Protection (PDF).5
ISEA’s standard for cut and puncture protection, ANSI/ISEA 105-2016, has also evolved. The standard now classifies nine levels of protection, defined as A1 through A9. Generally speaking, those levels can be thought of in three groupings:
■ Levels A1, A2, A3 offer protection against scrapes.
■ Levels A4, A5, A6 offer protection against injuries for which stitches would be required.
■ Levels A7, A8, A9 offer protection against the most serious injuries.
It’s important to note that even the most puncture-resistant gloves may not be designed specifically to protect against needle sticks.
Additional information and education focused on choosing
hand protection for cut/puncture will be published soon.
New Year’s Resolution
Developing a safety culture that prioritizes hand protection should be a top priority for employers in 2020. Hand injuries, whether from impacts or cuts/punctures, are too common and too costly to overlook.
For more information, including a helpful downloadable hand- protection infographic, visit SafeHandsAtWork.org.6
Lydia Baugh is director of external affairs at the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA), the trade association in the U.S. for personal protective equipment and technologies.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/cd_r13_2018.htm
2. https://www.ncci.com/Articles/Pages/AU_AIS2019-Powered-Data-
Driven-Insights-WC-System-Delivering.aspx
3. https://safetyequipment.org/standard/ansiisea-105-2016/
4. https://safetyequipment.org/ansi-isea-138-2019/
5. https://safetyequipment.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ISEA_ HandImpactWhitePaper_102519.pdf
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6. https://safetyequipment.org/safe-hands-at-work/