PPE Presentation

What is personal protective equipment (PPE)?

For the purposes of this course, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) simply means special clothing or apparatus that protects farm employees, visitors, or livestock from hazards.

For instance, PPE like dust masks can protect workers from airborne particles while cleaning out chicken houses, and aprons and gloves can protect milkers from disinfectants used in the milking parlor.

PPE can be simple like hearing and eye protection used in the machine shop. PPE can be complex like the use of Tyvek suits and respirators for pesticide application.

From the standpoint of farm biosecurity, PPE can also be used to prevent the transfer of dangerous microbes from one animal to another. This can be as simple as the use of farm-specific boots and coveralls to prevent the transfer of animal pathogens onto or off of the farm. 

When PPE is used correctly and consistently, the threat of personal injury or illness is greatly reduced. PPE also greatly reduces the spread of contaminants between people, facilities, and animals because the protective clothing goes on over a person’s clean clothing.

Each facility, and indeed each area within a facility, has different potential risks, so the most appropriate PPE is based on each individual circumstance.

 

Once you complete this lecture you should be able to:

• Define relevant terms.
• Differentiate between PPE used in daily biosecurity and PPE used in enhance biosecurity
• Describe how to don (put on) and doff (take off) various types of PPE.

 

Watch the following video and complete the quiz that follows.