Personal protective equipment
Barrier protection against workplace and recreational hazards.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. It addresses hazards including physical, electrical, heat, chemical, biohazards, and airborne particulate matter, and is worn for occupational safety, sports, and recreational activities. PPE ranks last on the hierarchy of hazard controls, used when elimination, substitution, engineering, and administrative controls are not feasible or effective.
- Field
- Occupational safety and health
- Known for
- Protecting wearers from injury and infection through barriers such as clothing, helmets, goggles, and respirators
- Limitation
- Does not eliminate hazard at source; may expose wearer if equipment fails
- Hierarchy position
- Last on the hierarchy of hazard controls
Lore & Background
Early PPE such as body armor, boots, and gloves focused on protecting the wearer from physical injury. Plague doctors in sixteenth-century Europe wore protective uniforms of a full-length gown, helmet, glass eye coverings, gloves, and boots, made of thick material covered in wax for water resistance. Their beak-like masks were filled with pleasant-smelling flowers, herbs, and spices to prevent miasma, the prescientific belief that bad smells spread disease through the air. In more recent years, scientific PPE is generally believed to have begun with cloth facemasks promoted by Wu Lien-teh during the 1910–11 Manchurian pneumonic plague outbreak, though some doctors and scientists of the time doubted their efficacy since they did not believe the disease was airborne.
Reader's Guide
Personal protective equipment serves as a critical last line of defense in occupational safety, reducing employee exposure to hazards when engineering and administrative controls are insufficient. However, it has the serious limitation of not eliminating the hazard at the source, and equipment failure can expose the wearer. Any PPE imposes a barrier that may create additional strains, impair work ability, and cause discomfort, potentially discouraging proper use and leading to injury, ill-health, or death. Good ergonomic design helps minimize these barriers. The hierarchy of controls places PPE last, acknowledging its utility but emphasizing that it is not the desired mechanism of control. PPE includes respirators (filtering or supplied-air types), surgical masks (not considered respirators), skin protection like gloves and lab coats, and eye protection. Organizations such as the Institute of Occupational Medicine in the UK and NIOSH in the US provide expertise and recommendations on respirator use.
Did You Know?
- PPE suits can be similar in appearance to a cleanroom suit.
- Plague doctors' uniforms included a beak-like mask filled with pleasant-smelling flowers, herbs, and spices to prevent miasma.
- Surgical masks are not considered respirators and are not certified for prevention of tuberculosis.
- Occupational skin diseases are the second-most common type of occupational disease.
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