Adapting the respiratory protection to suit with the RPD wearer and his exposition

The general approach for the prevention of occupational risks recommends first to put in place global protection like ventilated enclosure and then to use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to improve protection. But PPE are very common today. This paper deals with the respiratory protection at the workplace. The choice of a Respiratory Protective Device (RPD) well adapted to a given exposition is complex. Parameters linked with the workplace, the RPD wearer, the pollutant (size, toxicity) are to be taken into account. To make a good RPD choice, knowing the real level of protection at the workplace is essential because RPD performance standard tests realized in laboratory are not representative. A European project proposes recently a harmonized protocol to evaluate the protection factor of various RPDs in the workplace. An example of using this protocol to a situation of ultrafine particle exposition is detailed at the end of this paper.