A salute to ‘the history and the future’: NIOSH Respiratory Protection Week set for Sept. 3-6

Washington — In recognition of 100 years of efforts to advance workplace respirator awareness, NIOSH has marked Sept. 3-6 as its inaugural Respiratory Protection Week.

An Aug. 28 press release from the agency touts the progression of workplace respiratory protection, from the time the U.S. Bureau of Mines certified the first respirator to protect miners in 1919 to the contemporary work of NIOSH’S National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, which works to test respirators and establish certifications.

“Respiratory Protection Week honors both the history and the future of the efforts by researchers and practitioners to protect workers from airborne toxins,” NIOSH Director John Howard said in the release. “NIOSH’s own ongoing work in respiratory protection represents both a century’s worth of experience in preventing disease for millions of working men and women who have relied on respirators to protect their lungs, and a new century’s research in developing improvements in respiratory protection.”

NIOSH’s previous respirator awareness event, N95 Day, will expand into Respiratory Protection Week, the agency states. N95 Day had been observed on Sept. 5 since 2012.

Events for the week will include a live webinar with NIOSH experts and health care professionals discussing the status of research on powered air-purifying respirators for health care workers. The webinar is scheduled for noon Central on Sept. 5.

For more information, follow updates from @NIOSH_NPPTL on Twitter or search by the hashtag #100yrsRespirators.