Chosen respirators that have been used for the characteristic choice ranking and rating activity. Credit score: PLOS One (2025). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0334116
A brand new research from the Durham College Psychology Division has discovered that kids’s views on the design and luxury of air air pollution masks may very well be key to encouraging their common use.
The analysis, a part of the FACE-UP challenge (Components Affecting Childhood Exposures to City Particulates), explored how kids in Nepal and Indonesia really feel about various kinds of KN95-style respirators. The findings are revealed within the journal PLOS One.
Listening to kids
Air air pollution ranges in Nepal and Indonesia are as much as ten occasions larger than World Well being Group (WHO) security limits, placing kids at critical well being danger.
Our researchers labored with colleagues from Universitas Indonesia and the Nepal Well being Analysis Council to hold out focus teams with 116 kids aged 6 to 12 years.
The goal was to grasp which designs and types (e.g. strap kind, coloration, sample, form) they like to put on.
This may help producers, policymakers, and humanitarian companies design and distribute respirators that kids usually tend to put on persistently.
Design issues
The kids have been proven seven varieties of licensed respirators and requested to price their preferences for various design options and to rank them based on their private selection.
Most youngsters (69%) most well-liked masks with ear-loops moderately than head-straps, describing them as simpler and extra snug to put on.
Youthful kids have been drawn to colourful and patterned masks, whereas older kids preferred plain black or white designs.
Cultural variations additionally emerged. Indonesian kids, particularly boys, most well-liked black and vertical-fold masks, whereas Nepalese kids confirmed extra combined preferences.
No single masks design appealed to everybody, suggesting that a wide range of types could also be wanted to encourage use.
If just one possibility may very well be offered, the researchers advocate plain black or white respirators with ear loops, as these have been essentially the most extensively accepted.
Extra data:
Sarah Nila et al, Youngsters’s preferences for options and designs of KN95-style respirators: A comparative research between Indonesia and Nepal, PLOS One (2025). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0334116
Offered by
Durham College
Quotation:
Youngsters’s views may assist form higher masks design (2025, October 30)
retrieved 30 October 2025
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