Worker response to exercise in the heat while wearing lightweight, disposal Tyvek coveralls of the type worn during asbestos (1332214) removal operations in combination with four different levels of respiratory protection was investigated. The subjects included nine men, nonsmokers, aged 22 to 34 years. They were experienced fire fighters or emergency service personnel with prior experience using respiratory and protective clothing. The men participated in treadmill walking at a set speed of 4 kilometers per hour (kph) at 0 percent elevation in a controlled environment of 33.9 degrees-C and 50 percent relative humidity. The tests continued for 120 minutes with repeated work/rest intervals of 26 minutes work and 4 minutes rest. The four conditions included: one, control (a lightweight low resistance mask); two, an air purifying, full facepiece respirator with dual high efficiency filters, (HEPA); three, a supplied air, pressure demand respirator with escape filter (SAR); and four, an open circuit, pressure demand, self contained breathing apparatus, (SCBA). Heart rate, and skin and rectal temperatures were continuously recorded during the test periods. Subjective data were also collected. The heart rate varied by less than 8 beats per minute between the control conditions and the heaviest condition, number four. The skin and rectal temperature likewise varied only slightly, 0.2 degree for skin and 0.1 degree for rectal temperatures. The only subjective changes were that the respirator load was significantly different between ensembles. The authors conclude that more protective respiratory equipment may be associated with only minimal additional physiological and subjective stress in selected low work load asbestos abatement industry work settings.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.