Global Handwashing Day

Hand hygiene saves millions of lives every year when performed at the right moments during health care delivery. It is also a smart investment that offers exceptional return for each dollar invested. Clean care is a sign of respect to those who seek care, and it protects health and other workers who provide that care. Now is a critical time when countries across the world need to accelerate implementation of lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and increase investments to close gaps in infection prevention and control (IPC) , including hand hygiene. Indeed, many countries are demonstrating strong engagement and advancements in scaling-up those actions, but overall, the progress is slow, and gains are at risk. Together, we can galvanize action on preventing infections and antimicrobial resistance in health care.  Strong and engaged communities of health workers, policy makers and civil society organizations (CSOs) can accelerate and sustain action at the point of care to keep people...

Hand hygiene hypothesis is the idea that kids need to be exposed to germs in order to develop healthy immune systems. We know that many common viruses did not circulate as widely during the pandemic, thanks to social distancing, masking , and other COVID mitigation measures . Are there downsides to those missed infections? Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . 

  Hand hygiene in domestic settings is associated with a range of socio-demographic factors and behavioral determinants. Studies included in our analysis reported household knowledge, access to water, cultural beliefs and practices, and perceived susceptibility to illnesses as significant predictors of hand hygiene practice ( Agaro et al., 2022 ; Ogutu et al., 2022 ). For example, Leung et al. (2022) found that while parents had good knowledge of hygiene as a preventative measure, their attitudes and practices did not always translate into hand hygiene actions . This finding emphasizes the need to design programs that go beyond hygiene education and address key determinants to change hygiene behavior . One qualitative study by Sedekia et al. (2022) assessed a WASH intervention on soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection among children. The authors selected 20 households to engage in sessions that promoted various WASH improvement activities. These sessions were targeted to...

  Educational institutions provide an important context to promote hand hygiene behavior for the next generation . Limitations for hand hygiene support in schools include lack of access to basic handwashing facilities , especially in low and middle-income countries. Multiple studies published in 2022 examined handwashing knowledge and practices among school children and their caregivers. A cross-sectional study by Berhanu et al. (2022) investigated handwashing practices 5 among public primary school children in Ethiopia, finding that only 23.4% of the children reported always washing their hands before eating and only 16.7% reported always washing their hands after using the toilet. Availability of handwashing facilities, grade level, residence, and presence of role models were significantly associated with reported handwashing practices. The findings revealed that students with access to a handwashing facility in their home were 3.62 times more likely to wash their hands compa...

 Multiple studies published in 2022 focused on hand hygiene compliance in healthcare settings ( Al-Anaziet al., 2022 ; Kamara et al., 2022 ). A cross-sectional study by Umar et al. (2022) reported hand hygiene compliance as 34.7% among nurses working in public hospitals in Ethiopia, with positive association between hand hygiene compliance and gender (male), work experience (greater than 5 years), training in hand hygiene, availability of running water, and knowledge of hand hygiene. Another study by Yehouenou et al. (2022) investigated hand hygiene behavior in a public hospital in Benin; several factors, including knowledge, attitudes, and social factors, influenced hand hygiene behavior in this setting. In a qualitative study among healthcare workers in Iran, Ahmadipour et al. (2022) identified three broad categories of barriers to hand hygiene practice in healthcare settings that operate at multiple levels. First, the authors identified barriers related to the individual, w...

  Studies published in 2022 investigated the impact hygiene and broader WASH interventions can produce in humanitarian contexts. White et al. (2022a) conducted a qualitative case study in Northern Iraq to investigate how hygiene behavior is affected by conflict and displacement . The authors found that the ongoing conflict and displacement had a negative impact on hygiene practices, such as handwashing and sanitation. Bisimwa etal. (2022) conducted formative research to develop evidence-based targeted WASH interventions to reduce cholera in hotspots in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Preventative Intervention for Cholera for 7 Days (PICHA7) program was developed based on this research, which includes interventions such as promoting hand hygiene, water treatment, and safe food handling practices and emphasizes the importance of community engagement and participation in the development and implementation of such interventions in this context. Some studies examined more n...

 Proper hand hygiene plays a major role in preventing the spread of diseases in public spaces . One study by Akter et al. (2022) investigated implementation barriers and facilitators to a COVID-19 intervention in Bangladesh, focusing on the benefits of engaging the community for program delivery. The authors used a mixed-methods approach and found that engaging influential community members, free-of-cost materials, and telemedicine services were key facilitators in the successful implementation of the program, while irregular participation in trainings, lack of communication and coordination among stakeholders, and inadequate resources were identified as significant barriers. Another study by George et al. (2022) evaluated COVID-19 preventive hygiene behaviors by observing mask wearing , handwashing , and physical distancing behaviors in public indoor spaces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The study used a cross-sectional design and found that most participants were o...