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Hygiene promotion [Reviewed and updated by Lucy Smith, July 2005; Quality Assurance: Sandy Cairncross]

Author(s): Curtis, Val  |  Smith, Lucy  |  Cairncross, Sandy

Publisher: WEDC
Place of publication: Loughborough University, UK
Year: 2005

Series: WELL Fact Sheet
Collection(s): WELL

Links:

• http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/wedc/well/

For health experts, hygiene is behaviour that serves to prevent infection. Hygienic behaviour also helps to keep people and their environments clean, ordered and attractive (Curtis, 2001). Efforts to promote hygiene currently focus around three practices, for which there is strong evidence of a health benefit. These are: handwashing with soap (HWWS), the removal of stools from the household environment and the home treatment of drinking water (see box). The neglect of other practices such as the unsafe disposal of children's stools and the unsafe handling of weaning food can cause health problems in some settings, but has had less attention.

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