Respirator user instructions and NIOSH approval labels: are they understood and used?
Authors
Doney B; Groce D; Greskevitch M; Hoffman W
Source
American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition, May 8-13, 2004, Atlanta, Georgia. Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2004 May; :83
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducted a nationwide respirator survey through the United States Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics. The purpose of the survey was to evaluate respirator use and practice as an aid to guiding NIOSH respirator certification and research. The survey was mailed in August 2001 to 40,002 establishments representing all of the private sector major industry divisions. Among other information collected on respirator use and practices, the survey included questions on respirator user instructions and labeling. The survey estimated that 89% of all respirator-using establishments agree that manufacturers' instructions are clear and easily understood; 90% agree that manufacturers' instructions are beneficial in the use of respirators; 84% agree that NIOSH approval labels are clear and easily understood; and 80% agree that NIOSH approval labels are beneficial in the use of respirators. These high levels of agreement were uniform across all industry and establishment size groups. In contrast, however, were the findings from other questions in the survey that indicate apparent widespread inadequacies in the respiratory protection programs offered by establishments. For example, 91% of establishments requiring respirator use had at least one indicator of a potentially inadequate respiratory protection program, while 54% had at least five indicators.
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.