Overview of the Mechanisms for Providing Personal Protective Equipment in World Practice

Abstract

The paper considers a comparative analysis of the legal acts of providing workers with personal protective equipment of the European Union, the USA, Canada, the Russian Federation and other countries to justify the transition from the «list» approach to the issuance of personal protective equipment to the one used in international practice. Currently, the Republic of Kazakhstan uses a strictly regulated approach to the issuance of personal protective equipment based on established standards. The conditions of mass infection during the pandemic showed the ineffectiveness of the applied regulatory approach, without taking into account the nature of the risk. Therefore, in this direction there is a need for scientific substantiation of new approaches, taking into account the professional risk of the employee. During the review of international and domestic legal norms, key points of differences were identified, namely the use of a risk-based approach as the most modern and in line with modern trends and realities in ensuring the safe work of workers. Establishing a clear link with the results of occupational risk assessment will ensure the risk-oriented mechanisms for issuing personal protective equipment and training in safe work methods, which are modern measures of safe work in accordance with international legal practice. The article presents the results of scientific research obtained during the implementation of the scientific and technical program on the topic: «Risk-oriented organizational and economic mechanisms for ensuring safe work in the conditions of modern Kazakhstan» (IRN OR11865833-OT-21) within the framework of program-targeted funding of research of the Republican Research Institute for Labor Protection of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan.