NIOSH air filtration rating in the context of Isolation (health care)

In health care facilities, isolation represents one of several measures that can be taken to implement in infection control: the prevention of communicable diseases from being transmitted from a patient to other patients, health care workers, and visitors, or from outsiders to a particular patient (reverse isolation). Various forms of isolation exist, in some of which contact procedures are modified, and others in which the patient is kept away from all other people. In a system devised, and periodically revised, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), various levels of patient isolation comprise application of one or more formally described "precaution".

Isolation is most commonly used when a patient is known to have a contagious (transmissible from person-to-person) viral or bacterial illness. Special equipment is used in the management of patients in the various forms of isolation. These most commonly include items of personal protective equipment (gowns, masks, and gloves) and engineering controls (positive pressure rooms, negative pressure rooms, laminar air flow equipment, and various mechanical and structural barriers). Dedicated isolation wards may be pre-built into hospitals, or isolation units may be temporarily designated in facilities in the midst of an epidemic emergency.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, /ˈnaɪɒʃ/) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury, illness, disability, and death. Its functions include gathering information, conducting scientific research both in the laboratory and in the field, and translating the knowledge gained into products and services. Among NIOSH's programs are determination of recommended exposure limits for toxic chemicals and other hazards, field research such as the Health Hazard Evaluation Program, epidemiology and health surveillance programs such as the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer, regulatory approval of respirators according to the NIOSH air filtration rating system, and compensation and support programs such as the World Trade Center Health Program.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act, signed by President Richard M. Nixon on December 29, 1970, created NIOSH out of the preexisting Division of Industrial Hygiene founded in 1914. NIOSH is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Despite the similarities in names, it is not part of the National Institutes of Health or OSHA, which have distinct and separate responsibilities.