Selecting personal protective equipment for their workforces puts safety managers in a complicated, balancing act. They are dealing with regulating state and federal mandates, budgets, and acceptance concerns while protecting workers in multifarious ways. However, many best practice or the basic measures ignore deeper issues that can absolutely determine the value of any safety and health practice.
The most visible issues get a lot of face time. Cost analysis, regulation compliance, and safety program longevity are always more than words on a page in every conversation and meeting regarding PPE selection. Training bases usage, and safety audits measures compliance to some level. However, below are even more fundamental issues that can create often unnoticed issues that preclude even the best-intentioned safety and health program.
Hidden issues will typically only start showing themselves after the PPE has been implemented. Typically, hidden problems will show themselves in productivity decreases, or compliance issues. Although fixing the issue may involve a different expenditure or even re-equipping, which packaging world is acceptable, however up-front safety reasons would lead you to think it would have simply been worth the trouble to handle it from the start.
The Issue Surrounding the Individual Need for Standard PPE
Most links from the above and risk assessment use the assumption related to individuals working under “similar job titles” have similar PPE issues. This assumption is broken down ultimately when you add body positioning, medical circumstances, and the challenges associated with the job. For example, the safety professional may describe or based PPE regulations, communicate the better and best hard hats for the job even they do not do perhaps recognize that the workers may need a different suspension/hard hat system based on head shape.
Vision is the problem that gets most complex, with the least amount of challenge, and very few safety programs want to account for vision. You have workers with altered vision making a decision about safety as an example eyes against visibility, specifically without adequate eye wear. Wearing conventional safety spectacles over prescription glasses presents discomfort, fogging, and a gap in protection that limits safety and productivity.
While some organizations have identified solutions such as prescription safety glasses that achieve comfort without chalking up the numerous disadvantages of layering an additional piece of equipment, the initial cost of implementing them typically provides some initial resistance from budget-minded managers.
The problem does not only concern vision correction as the employee may differ in other physical attributes that can affect the effectiveness of PPE. Workers with facial hair may not obtain an adequate seal for a mask when donning a respirator. Different sizes of workers’ hands may mean standard sizes of gloves eliminate some dexterity and/or protectiveness needed. Height differences can affect how safety harnesses displace weight and forces impact for a fall.
Environmental Factors That Change Everything
The performance of PPE mitigates significantly in specific environments, but many PPE selection procedures evaluate equipment under controlled conditions. Temperature extremes can impact flexibility and durability of materials. Extreme humidity levels can create fogging problems that were not noted during the original testing in a climate-controlled condition. Chemical exposure can impact materials and their effectiveness through methods that could create accelerated replacement schedules.
Seasonal changes can also complicate the anticipated use of PPE that many safety managers do not consider. Safety glasses can work as designed in an air conditioned facility but begin fogging in the summer while working in the southeast US. Gloves that provided excellent dexterity at moderate temperature can become too stiff to use when the temperature drops. Hard hats while outdoor working in the summer can become very hot which can also create compliance issues.
Noise levels are also an environmental challenge to PPE selection beyond hearing protection. A loud working environment creates challenges in communicating with fellow employees that most employees will choose to remove hearing protection to communicate or coordinate work with fellow employees. Of course, the communication barrier impacts safety in other areas, in addition to hearing protection.
The Psychology of Acceptance of Equipment
The acceptance of equipment by workers directly relates to their perception of performance, however, the psychological influences are less frequently discussed when selecting equipment. Of course, comfort is related, but many work environments value perceptions of professionalism, acceptance within their colleagues, and work identity which may then influence the workers’ likelihood to wear that equipment.
Often, when employees are required to wear personal protective equipment, they reject wearing the equipment if it makes them look awkward, unprofessional, or they feel it is not in line with their peers. Safety glasses which continuously slide down the face when completing physical work will frustrate the user even if the glasses are protecting their vision. Gloves which limit the user’s ability to obtain tactile feedback that provides them with necessary information about completing their work or task will result in the workers discarding the gloves regardless of the importance of fine motor skills in completing quality work.
Compliance approaches can also become more difficult when an employee perceives a stigma associated with the specific personal protective equipment. For example, they may not want to wear hearing protection equipment in front of peers or supervisors if it is perceived as either indicating a lack of experience or ability to do the work. The same could be said about reactive equipment or safety equipment which reveals to the employee, the need for a specific type of physical support or a medical need while in the workplace, which could lead the employee to a fear of discrimination.
Communication and Coordination Barriers
Personal protective equipment can also create barriers to important communication on the job which safety managers may or may not consider. Regardless, face masks or respirator masks can muffle speech, making verbal coordination more challenging. Safety glasses can impair peripheral vision, limiting work’s typical situational awareness of most workers. Similarly, hearing protection can inhibit or limit the user’s ability to detect equipment failure, incoming vehicles, or emergency alarms. Communication difficulties are worsened in complex work situations where various workers need to coordinate efforts to determine if an environment is safe. Construction sites, manufacturing facilities, and maintenance work all require frequent communication that is affected by any required protection.
The tendency to take off PPE in order to communicate more effectively establishes a safety gap at the same time when coordination is most important. A worker might pull up a face shield to provide instruction or take off hearing protection to communicate about a collaborative lift, potentially exposing them to risk while doing so during a high-risk task.
Long-Term Health Effects That Don’t Explicitly Show Up in Testing
Standard PPE testing has a focus on immediate protection from specific hazards, while any long-term health effects from equipment also go unmeasured. A poorly fitting piece of safety equipment may also be related to musculoskeletal problems that develop over time with continuous use. Wearing a hard hat that induces some sort of pressure point on the user’s head may lead to chronic headaches eventually. For example, safety glasses that require incessant adjustments can promote some neck strain.
Skin sensitivity or any skin related health issues may develop over months, if not years. Most of these may go unnoticed until such equipment has been worn for an observable period of time. Materials that may not cause any irritation when first introduced may cause some type of dermatitis or skin condition as the exposure time has accumulated. Chemical treatments applied to materials intended for some type of protection or durability may cause an allergic response, once dental or which is related, has been used for an extended period of time.
Poorly recognized eye strain and/or fatigue is a long-term health effect that is not expressly included or measured in standard testing of any current PPE. Distorted vision, an improper or otherwise unrecognized optical correction, or inadequate UV protection may increase fatigue of the user’s eyes, which may impact quality and effects overall visual acuity in other situations, both work and otherwise.
Integration Challenges With the Existing System
Many PPE is not used in isolation. Incompatibility or limited compatibility with existing equipment systems is often overlooked during selection evaluation. Safety glasses need to be compatible with any hard hat, hearing protection, or respiratory protection without compromising any level of protection while reducing the effectiveness of any apparatus.
The compatibility of tools may become further challenges, which may have an impact on safety and productivity. In order to safely use tools while using certain PPE the use of gloves need to allow for proper grip and control of specific tools or equipment. Safety glasses need to be utilized in conjunction with any optical instruments, all types of precision instruments, and computer screens without impacting any established visual acuity or speculatively imposing significant visual strain to do so.
Multiple individual pieces of protective equipment that are cumulative with some weight and bulk can restrict a worker’s ability to move properly while introducing additional fatigue that would not be readily apparent when looking at only one component. In high heat environments the introduction of cumulative equipment provides several layers of operational heat, which can lead to overheating, fatigue, and ultimately reducing alertness to poor performance in decision making.
While all of these are acknowledged, which allows safety managers, workers making discerning and insightful decisions, provides better understanding to allowances for additional moderate cost solutions for overall education, taxpayers, etc. The most effective safety programs are effective due to recognizing not only the obvious hazards, but also the subtleties to understand what determines if PPE is reliably used in the overall existing worker conditions in or overall work environments.
