ASTM F3407 Respirator Fit Capability Standard: General Overview and Impact on Work Settings

Webinar: ASTM F3407 Respirator Fit Capability Standard: General Overview and Impact on Work Settings

Date: Tuesday February 23^rd, 2021 2:00PM EST—3:00PM EST

One of the most important criteria for any filtering facepiece air-purifying respirator to be effective is that a good seal is formed between the respirator’s facepiece and the wearer’s skin. The ability to achieve this seal on a wide variety of face sizes is called the respirator’s fitting characteristic.

Prior to 2020, no voluntary consensus or other government-unique standards existed to evaluate the fit capability of a filtering facepiece respirator before it was used in an OSHA-regulated workplace’s fit testing program. Therefore, NIOSH requested that ASTM International develop a voluntary consensus standard for a fitting characteristic evaluation.

On October 13, 2020, ASTM International published the ASTM F3407 – 20 Standard Test Method for Respirator Fit Capability for Negative-Pressure Half-Facepiece Particulate Respirators (RFC Standard). The standard’s goal is to increase the probability that available respirators fit a general worker population, thus providing workers with better protection. Additional information about this new standard is available in the NIOSH Science Blog.

In this webinar, you’ll learn about:

• The new ASTM F3407 Respirator Fit Capability standard
• The importance and impact the standard will have on healthcare and general industry settings
• The steps moving forward

To learn more about this standard, please join us for a webinar on February 23^rd from 2:00PM-3:00PM (EST). Registration for the webinar is available here.