Fit Academy: Schedule a free session

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Engage your workforce with fit testing awareness training. This interactive workshop provides valuable information on respiratory, hearing, eye and fall protection fit assessments, PPE comfort and fit selection options, and best practices to help enhance your health and safety program.

The Fit Academy is a training and education program designed by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This interactive session will cover the latest updates in rulemaking and strategies for considering employee PPE fit in existing PPE programs. This includes consideration of the combination of appropriate fit, compliance, and comfort during the selection process and methods to assess fit for various types of PPE, including hearing protection, eye protection, respiratory protection, and fall harnesses. Learn how to help ensure that workers are protected by understanding PPE options that fit well, meet safety standards, and help drive enhanced outcomes within health and safety programs.

Help ensure a proper fit

Learn more about the 3M Integrated Protection Program*

Fit can have a significant impact on protection. Fit testing is a best practice, and is often required by standards and regulations to verify that PPE is providing the expected level of protection. There are many factors that aﬀect how well PPE fits the individual wearer, including size and shape of the wearer and other equipment or clothing worn at the same time.

*3M Integrated Protection Program refers to 3M’s portfolio of personal protective equipment (PPE) technologies and services that may be used by workers for their various needs, including comfort, fit, compatibility, communication, or performance. The depicted combinations are representative examples of which technologies may work together, but these combinations may not be appropriate for all work environments. Employers are responsible to select PPE combinations based on employee risk assessment for hazards and ensure that fit testing of combinations are conducted while wearing all appropriate PPE.

Respiratory fit testing
A tight-fitting respirator needs to seal to a wearer’s face. Otherwise, contaminated air can enter the wearer’s breathing zone.

Applies to all tight-fitting respirators, including:

Filtering facepiece particulate respirators

Half and full facepiece respirators with filters and/ or cartridges

Tight fitting facepieces connected to PAPRs or supplied air respirators, or used with SCBAs
Hearing protector fit testing
If earplugs do not fit the wearer’s ear canals or earmuffs the wearer’s head well, external noise may bypass the hearing protector, which can lead to noise-induced hearing loss over time. A benefit of hearing protector fit testing is that it can help identify persons at risk for overexposure to noise due to improper fit.

Applied to:

Disposable and reusable earplugs

Earmuffs

Protective communication devices
Eye protection fit evaluation
All eye protection needs to provide a wide field of view, security of fit, and good coverage.

Protective goggles should fit snugly with no gaps between the protective goggles and the wearer’s face.

Protective eyewear should have minimal gaps between protective eyewear and the wearer’s face.
Fall Protection fit evaluation (PDF, 491 KB)

Worker comfort, fit, and ease of use are key considerations in the selection of a full body harness. Full body harnesses distribute fall arrest forces across the shoulders, upper thighs, chest, and pelvis. Therefore proper fit is critical. Harnesses should be chosen based on the task and the size of the wearer, and then donned, fitted and adjusted properly before each use.

Applies to all fall protection harnesses.

We can help you get started

Contact your 3M representative to learn about scheduling a free Fit Academy training session.

Fit Academy training sessions may be conducted either onsite or online, depending on 3M’s availability. Submission of a request does not guarantee approval or scheduling. All training requests are subject to review and will be confirmed by a 3M specialist upon contact, based on applicable criteria.