Respiratory Protection for Healthcare Workers

Herd protection effect of N95 respirators in healthcare workers

Objective To determine if there was herd protection conferred to unprotected healthcare workers (HCWs) by N95 respirators worn by colleagues. Methods Data were analysed from a prospective cluster randomized clinical trial conducted in Beijing, China between 1 December 2008 and 15 January 2009. A minimum compliance level (MCL) of N95 respirators for prevention of clinical respiratory illness (CR...

Respiratory Protection for Nanoparticles

A. Nanoparticles are very small (nearly atomic scale) with diameters less than 100 nm (<0.1 micron) in at least one dimension. Because of their small size, air sampling results indicating low mass concentrations actually contain greater numbers and larger surface area/unit mass of nanoparticles than for the same mass concentration of larger particles. Also, nanoparticles may be more biologicall...

Respiratory protection.

Healthcare and lifestyle practices of healthcare workers: do healthcare workers practice what they preach?

Comment. Our analysis has 2 main findings: (1) compared with current practice, screening all eligible women every 2 or 3 years can yield equal or greater health benefits at a significant cost savings, and (2) routine screening more often than every 3 years exceeds conventional thresholds for cost-effectiveness in the United States. Together, these findings support recent guidelines recommending...

Ethics of mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at increased risk of contracting infections at work and further transmitting them to colleagues and patients. Immune HCWs would be protected themselves and act as a barrier against the spread of infections and maintain healthcare delivery during outbreaks, but vaccine uptake rates in HCWs have often been low. In order to achieve adequate immunisation rates in HCWs,...