Inclusive personal protective equipment
Women at a disadvantage - again
As heatwave records are broken around the world this summer, Arinite’s May 2025 International Blog noted how women, and especially older women, suffer more from heat stress than men.
Writing the blog made me reflect on another issue affecting women’s health & safety at work, which seems seldom mentioned. Decades ago, lecturers on my health & safety training course warned us students that personal protective equipment (PPE) all too often comes in one-size-fits-all. However, in reality, different ethnicities, genders, and even different height people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Underlying bone structures, for example, can make the sealing of respirator masks particularly difficult.
Canadian experience
Canadian Women’s Experiences with Personal Protective Equipment in the Workplace (AnyaKeefe - 2022). reported that:
- women use PPE that is the wrong size at least some of the time (58%);
- they don’t wear all the required PPE at work because of issues with fit (28%); and
- they use a workaround to make their PPE fit (38%).
Workarounds included using rubber bands, safety pins, and/or duct tape to shorten fall-arrest gear, secure work gloves, shorten sleeves, and prevent their trouser legs from tripping them up. Nearly 40% reported experiencing an injury or incident that they perceived to be related to their PPE.
PPE that fits campaign
Already in The EU and UK, legislation obliges employees to assess the suitability of PPE.
In the UK, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) has launched a major new initiative to address widespread inequalities in PPE provision across the construction industry.
The #PPEthatfits campaign will drive awareness around the lack of inclusive PPE in the market and consider how this is impacting health and safety on site, while also hampering the industry’s ability to attract and retain a more diverse workforce. The campaign also features a directory of suppliers who provide #PPEthatfits (from many countries) which will be updated regularly.
BS 30417:2025 Provision of Inclusive PPE
Still in the UK, the British Standards Institution published a white paper last month called BS 30417: 2025 – Provision of Inclusive PPE – Guide. This serves as a foundational document to promote inclusive PPE provision and will be followed by a comprehensive BS 30417 standard, expected in late 2025 or early 2026. It aims to provide guidance for organisations to ensure that PPE is properly selected, purchased, and maintained for a diverse workforce, regardless of gender, disability, or cultural considerations.
Three last thoughts
- International standards organisations often share notes with each other, so although only a draft British Standard at the moment, BS 30417 may one day become a full ISO international standard.
- Personal protective equipment should only be considered a last line of defence. Ask Arinite to help find ways of reducing risk to the level where PPE is no longer necessary. (We sometimes talk about “collective” measure that protect everyone, as opposed to individual measures.)
- Arinite clients enjoy access to numerous factsheets, one of which addresses PPE.
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