Speech Intelligibility While Wearing Civilian Full-Facepiece Air- Purifying Respirators

摘要

In situations where law enforcement officers are wearing air- purifying respirators (APRs) and communicating either with each other or the public, intelligible speech can be critical. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) requires a 70% speech intelligibility performance rating for commercial chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) APR certification. As the score is not released, there is no way to know which respirators perform better than others. This effort assessed the speech intelligibility of 12 NIOSH-certified CBRN APRs. Statistically, the Millenium and FR-M40 had significantly higher scores than the FR-7800B. The Millenium also scored significantly higher than the M-TAC. In situations where speech is critical, the Millenium and FR-M40 would be expected to provide higher speech intelligibility than the FR-7800B.