We’ve talked about protecting your hands with gloves, but now let’s look at body protection. You have several choices: laboratory coats, gowns or coveralls. The selection should be based upon a risk assessment. Traditional laboratory coats are front closing and either long sleeved or short. Laboratory gowns are usually rear closing so they completely cover the front of the body and usually long sleeved. Coveralls, as their name suggests, cover your body from neck to ankles. They are made of cloth or synthetic material and usually front closing. Coveralls should be worn when handling animals, and working in dirty or dusty environments because there is more potential risk of getting your clothing contaminated. Finally, there’s full body level A type suits for high containment work, which is beyond the scope of this course.

All these body coverings afford protection from splatters of a chemical or biological material that you don’t want to get on your home clothing. All these coverings can be reusable or disposable. Disposable coverings are move expensive and they create more trash that must be decontaminated. Therefore, we encourage people to use reusable cloth gowns or laboratory coats for low-risk work because they can be laundered. Just be sure they are decontaminated first and then laundered, before reuse. Laboratory coats, only protect from small splashes contacting your street clothing and do not cover much of the body. Therefore, gowns that are thick cloth that can be reused and protect the whole front of the body all the way down to the knees are preferred when working in a biomedical facility. If you need further protection from liquids consider adding a water or chemical resistant apron, which is very good when washing glassware or handling liquid chemicals.

Instead of covering your street clothing you might consider changing into another set of dedicated laboratory clothing or a nursing uniform. These can be worn alone or under your laboratory gown. This ensures that you don’t take any contamination home with you. For this to work, you must have a place where you can remove your street clothing and leave it in a secure locker before donning your nursing uniform or laboratory clothes.

In certain circumstances you may also wish to cover your head as well. Often this is done in clean rooms or food preparation areas, where you don’t want hair to fall into the product. But hair nets and other head coverings should also be used when you think there is a risk of contamination of the hair from dust, dander, sprays or splashes. Some types of coveralls come with joined boots and head covering to give you full body coverage.

Finally, foot protection. At all biosafety levels you should always wear closed-toe shoes that will protect your feet. In certain cases, you may wish to change shoes once you start work, so that you do not take your laboratory work shoes home. Another way to protect your shoes would be wear disposable shoe covers over your regular street shoes. If these are used, you should have a bench or chair available for donning and doffing. If working in wet environments waterproof boots may be required. If working with heavy animals that may step on your toes, steel-toes work boots should be used.

Again, the type and style of body protection you choose should be selected based upon a risk assessment. And remember, any laboratory clothing (coats, gowns coveralls, etc.) should never, ever be taken home or be worn outside the laboratory facility because it may be contaminated. Next, we will examine your choices for eye and face protection.