Articles

RSS

Click Here To Download:
•White Paper: Assessing Powered Air Purifying And Supplied Air Respirator Performance

An Employer's Guide to OSHA's Final Rule on Assigned Protection Factors for Respirators

For well over a decade, occupational health and safety professionals have lacked authoritative governmental guidance on performance ratings (commonly referred to as a "Assigned Protection Factor" or APF) of respirators used in the workplace. OSHA published, but did not always update, a bewildering array of substance-specific standards. Across each standard one could often find an inconsistent assignment of protection factors to various classes of respirators.

Adding to the confusion for practitioners were national consensus standards developed independently of government regulations. These were based upon more recent scientific studies. Particularly for Supplied Air and Powered Air Purifying respirators, nationally recognized standards (e.g., ANSI Z88.2) promoted different (higher) Protection Factors than were published in government regulations.

Click Here To Download:
•White Paper: Assessing Powered Air Purifying And Supplied Air Respirator Performance

SOURCE: Bullard