Inpatient care providers and nursing home workers are at highest risks for inadequate or reuse of PPE, with inpatient providers reporting PPE reuse 23.7% of the time and healthcare workers in nursing homes being the most frequent group to report inadequate supplies of PPE (16.9% of group).

Table:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7273299/table/T4/?report=objectonly


Healthcare environments prone to inadequate or reuse of PPE for healthcare workers 

Compared with healthcare workers using adequate PPE, frontline healthcare workers reporting the reuse of PPE had a 46% increased risk of reporting a positive COVID-19 test, with inadequate PPE associated with a comparable 31% increase

Syracuse University

University of California, Santa Cruz

- medRxiv
- Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (JEADV)
- WHO

References for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) by Journal

With the demand for protective personal equipment constantly increasing due to COVID-19, there are compromises being made, aiming to reduce negative ramifications.
- Healthcare workers required to personally acquired their own PPE.  Often sacrifices quality of protection and increases risk of contagion.
-  Reusing of PPE presents higher risk for contracting COVID-19.  Quality degrades over time and reduces effectiveness of protection.

Negative Consequences of PPE Shortage

Nguyen, L. H., Drew, D. A., Joshi, A. D., Guo, C. G., Ma, W., Mehta, R. S., Sikavi, D. R., Lo, C. H., Kwon, S., Song, M., Mucci, L. A., Stampfer, M. J., Willett, W. C., Eliassen, A. H., Hart, J. E., Chavarro, J. E., Rich-Edwards, J. W., Davies, R., Capdevila, J., Lee, K. A., … Chan, A. T. (2020). Risk of COVID-19 among frontline healthcare workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences, 2020.04.29.20084111. 
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.20084111
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.20084111v6

Risk of COVID-19 among frontline healthcare workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study

- Risk of COVID-19 among frontline healthcare workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study


MedRxiv papers for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)


- Protecting medical staff from skin injury/disease caused by personal protective equipment during epidemic period of COVID‐19: experience from China

Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (JEADV) papers for PPE


- Shortage of personal protective equipment endangering health workers worldwide
- Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public: When and how to use masks

WHO Articles about the Use of Face Masks

Self-contamination during repeated donning and doffing or breakdown of materials due to extended wear are the greatest risks of reusing PPE.

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