ISRP 2002 abstract
| Presenter/author | Title | Abstract |
|
Guan, Jinhua** *) National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, NIOSH, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA **) Division of Safety Research, NIOSH, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA |
Recapturing the Sizing Issues of Respirator Fit-test Panels for Emergency Response |
Ill-fit respirators may compromise the
ability of emergency responders to act effectively in hazardous
situations. This study reevaluated the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
respirator fit-test panels for their effectiveness to provide sizing
reference for the US military and civilian populations. The LANL panels
were developed in 1974 based on the 1967-68 US Air Force Anthropometry
Survey. The 1988-89 US Army Anthropometry Survey and the Civilian
American and European Surface Anthropometry Resource (CAESAR ) were
involved in this evaluation. Data on face length and face width from the
Army survey or CAESAR were fed into the full-facepiece panel, and data
on face length and lip length from the Army survey were fed into the
half-facepiece panel. Any individual whose bivariate dimensions fell out
of panel boundaries was considered to be not accommodated.
With adjusted racial distribution, the full- and half-facepiece panels were able to accommodate 90.1% and 93.1%, respectively, of the Army survey population. The full-facepiece panel was able to accommodate only 85% the CAESAR population. There was insufficient information for evaluating the ability of the half-facepiece panel to accommodate the CAESAR population. The LANL panels should be revised so that they can fit 95% of the current civilian population. |