A pilot study on facial anthropometric dimensions of the Chinese population for half-mask respirator design and sizing

A facial anthropometric survey was conducted for the Chinese subjects in 2006 and the collected data were compared with those of American, Korean and Australian populations presented in literatures. Key facial anthropometric dimensions for half-mask design and sizing, face width and face length of the Chinese, were also compared against NIOSH respirator fit test panels. Comparative results for the four target ethnic groups showed that two key facial anthropometric dimensions of the Chinese subjects were significantly different from those of other ethnic groups except for the Korean population. Mean values of facial width for both Chinese genders were significantly larger than those of the American and the Australian. Anthropometric values of facial length of the Chinese in the survey were significantly lower than those of the American and the Koreans. It was concluded that NIOSH panels for half-mask respirator design and sizing in the US should be reconstructed for application to the Chinese groups.