AI-SAFEHAND: A Funded Project for Advanced Glove Sizing and Enhanced Firefighter Protection

Protective gloves are essential for firefighter safety, with proper fit being crucial to prevent injuries and accidents. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reported that from 2016-2020, 40% of fireground injuries involved hands or fingers, underscoring the need for well-fitting protective gloves. Research by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) revealed that up to 62% of female firefighters experience glove fit issues. Ill-fitting gloves impair efficiency, thermal protection, blood circulation, dexterity, grip, and tactility, which are vital in firefighting. In some cases, firefighters remove gloves due to poor fit, risking severe injury.

There are significant gaps in knowledge regarding glove fit. A major issue is the absence of accurate hand anthropometric data for firefighters, as current sizing systems use outdated military data. Traditional measurement methods are inefficient, necessitating new approaches. Additionally, there's no clear definition of a proper fit, which should consider dynamic fit under realistic conditions. Female firefighters often face fit issues due to neglected gender differences in glove design.

To address these challenges, the AI-SAFEHAND project aims to develop an AI-assisted approach for better firefighter glove sizing and fit. The project's goals include creating an AI-powered hand anthropometric tool, developing a dynamic hand-glove matching system, and establishing a comprehensive firefighter hand data database. This initiative responds to the 2021 National Fire Service Research Agenda's call for improved personal protective equipment (PPE).

The expected benefits of AI-SAFEHAND include immediate and long-term improvements in glove fit and performance. An intelligent size matching and personalized glove recommendation system will enable firefighters to select gloves for optimal fit, enhancing safety and performance. This approach will streamline procurement, reduce costs, and address ill-fitting glove issues in the fire service. The creation of a nationwide firefighter hand database will inform new NFPA standards for glove design, accommodating gender differences and improving glove patterning for female firefighters.

Additionally, the project involves a mobile app for user feedback, promoting user-centered glove development. This comprehensive platform aims to enhance firefighter safety, comfort, and efficiency, fostering communication among firefighters, researchers, and manufacturers for continuous PPE improvement.

Written by Karthika Suresh Kumar

Each year,  thousands of workers in the farming, fishing, and forestry sectors suffer hand injuries and illnesses, causing significant healthcare costs and loss of productivity. Fishery workers are often exposed to cold temperatures, high wind velocities, and wet weather while handling cold/frozen equipment/objects. This can cause blood vessels to constrict, reducing blood flow to extremities and decreasing hand dexterity and tactility, increasing the risks of traumatic hand injuries and exacerbating musculoskeletal disorders. However, the underlying mechanisms and fundamental parameters that affect blood circulation and skin temperature of a hand holding a fishing tool while wearing a protective glove and being exposed to extremely cold and wet conditions are still largely unknown. This knowledge gap and absence of relevant industry standards have forced fishery workers to use gloves designed for other purposes and occupations, usually where the focus is purely mechanical protection (tears, cuts, punctures, etc.) while neglecting thermoregulatory aspects. These gloves are inadequate for fishery work due to poor thermal and moisture management,  causing thermal discomfort and reduced dexterity and grip, thereby contributing to a hand injury in the worst-case scenario.

This project aims to reduce hand injuries in the fishing industry by establishing a framework to provide scientific directions for the development of standards, regulations, evaluation methods, and selection guidance of existing and next-generation protective gloves through an interdisciplinary exploration-examination-prediction approach. We will develop and validate a 3D multi-segment hand thermoregulation model capable of simulating the thermophysiological response of fishery workers exposed to cold and wet conditions, repetitive motion, and fast-paced hand activity. The expected results will elucidate how ambient conditions, gloves, and tool gripping interact to affect blood flow and skin temperature in each hand segment, thus providing new insights for the design and development of effective fishing gloves that consider hand thermal physiology and optimize hand function while accounting for the particular usage environment and fishing tasks. 

This project has three specific aims: 

1. Market and usage experience analysis and performance evaluation of existing protective gloves,
2. Developing a 3D multi-segment hand-specific thermoregulation model for fishery workers, and
3. Using model simulations to investigate the impacts of glove material properties, environmental factors, and hand posture (fishing activities) on the thermophysiological response of the hand. The proposed work is innovative because it departs from the status quo by employing a synergistic and convergent approach to develop and evaluate hand protective gear that will lead to new designs and materials that account for the human thermophysiological response and ergonomic factors to mitigate the risk of hand injuries. Finally, the expected outcomes have significant potential to guide new material development and apply functional and ergonomic designs, and generate new evaluation standards and usage guidance for gloves to achieve balanced protection, comfort, and performance.

NexGenPPE's Dr. Guowen Song is a part of a team at Iowa State that has teamed up with UC Davis and the University of Cincinnati to develop personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. The project has been awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has a budget of $1.8 million. The overall purpose of the grant is to improve PPE used in healthcare settings for infection control by incorporating functional textile materials and a new design for both gowns and respirators. Over the next several years, Dr. Song and his team are sure to make a difference in the world's PPE strategies.

The objectives are:

1. Design and develop an innovative textile material and isolation gowns,

2. Design and develop an innovative textile filtering facepiece respirator (FFR) with significantly improved performance against infectious aerosols

3. Develop the capability to produce these two products within the US textile industry

The overall PPE performance design will be evaluated using instrumented manikins, specifically designed human trials, and field use and performance testing. The data from these various evaluations will be applied to further improve the newly developed PPE components, making an impact in how healthcare workers are protected both domestically and abroad.