A good fit means the respirator will seal to your skin. A respirator can only work when air passes through the filter. Air will take the path of least resistance, so if the seal isn’t there, the air will go around rather than through the respirator – and therefore lessen the protection.
Importance of a User Seal Check
You’ve put on your respirator and other safety equipment. It’s time to get to work. You know your employer chose appropriate equipment for your job, and you passed your annual respirator fit testing. So you’re good to go, right? Not until you perform one easy task that should be an ingrained habit every time you use a respirator: a user seal check.
3M and the Science of Fit Testing
3M has been applying fit test science to respirator wearers’ life for years. We even pioneered the creation of the saccharin qualitative fit test protocol – the first qualitative fit test for filtering facepiece respirators based on taste of a test agent.
Have You Heard: What’s Your Least Favorite Sound and Why?
We acknowledge that loud noises can harm our hearing, and we understand the tremendous benefits of wearing hearing protection. But what we want to know is why this is important to you. We want you to be fans of the sounds around us. Here are some responses to the question “What’s your least favorite sound and why?”
Have You Heard: What’s Your Favorite Sound and Why?
We acknowledge that loud noises can harm our hearing, and we understand the tremendous benefits of wearing hearing protection. But what we want to know is why this is important to you. We want you to be fans of the sounds around us. Here are some responses from around the world to the question “What’s your favorite sound and why?”
Introducing the Safety Now & Next Blog
We listened to our customers, and they were clear that they wanted relevant, easy-to-understand information on worker safety topics, training & technical resources, and regulatory news. This blog is one of the ways we hope to connect with our customers and the workers we strive to help to keep safe.
Digital Disruption Helps Bring Safer Workplaces
When is change worth it? When it can help save lives? Potentially millions of lives? You’d think so… but when it comes to humans, we’re often reluctant to change our behavior, even when the writing’s on the wall.
Insights That Spark Innovation
Inventors can sometimes seem obsessed. Bursting with energy and passion for their big ideas, they risk losing focus on the customer at the end of the process. And examples of large-scale, costly misses litter the business literature.
New OH&S Professional Essay Contest
To commemorate our 30th anniversary of support for the profession, we have expanded our focus to those professionals new to the field. This year we held an essay contest on the topic of “How Technology Will Impact Occupational Health and Safety.”
ESSAY FINALIST: How Technology Will Impact Occupational Health and Safety (Withrow)
If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that nearly everything we humans do is aimed at making some other job easier. When the first wheel was invented, the neighbors probably pointed and laughed at the person pushing it around until the time came to haul a woolly mammoth back to camp.