Respiratory Exposure Assessment

Originally published on 3M.com. It is republished with permission.

As a safety manager, you need to ensure you're using the right respiratory protection measures and equipment. To do that, you'll first need to know the types and levels of airborne contaminants in your job site.

A thorough and well-documented exposure assessment process will help you:

Identify potential health risks to workers.
Prioritize those risks so you can tackle the most serious first.
Measure exposure levels to see if they're acceptable or not.
Develop a plan to control unacceptable exposure levels.
Keep records of exposure for communicating to workers and complying with government regulations.