Washing Hands with Soap and Water

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Washing Hands with Soap and Water
 

Promote the habit of washing hands with soap and water to decrease episodes of diarrhoea. To ensure the sufficient availability of soap, partnerships with local manufacturers will be used to promote this practice.

Diarrhoea is the single biggest cause of infant and child mortality in India.

Worldwide, surveys have shown that hand-washing alone reduces the instance of diarrhoea by as much as 43 percent.

 

Name: Washing Hands with Soap and Water
Status:
Theme: Safe Water Management	Region and Country: Maharashtra, India
Partners:	Beneficiaries:
Funding Need:	Budget:
Duration:	Contact:

Proper hand washing is important in preventing the spread of communicable disease. Proper hand washing is not just a quick cold rinse of the hands. It requires 20 seconds of your time, warm water, soap (liquid is best) and some devoted scrubbing. This means washing around tips of fingers, fingernails, and the web, as well as the front and back of your hands. The dirtier the hands, the longer the wash time. Use the paper towel to turn off the faucet handle. This reduces the risk of picking up bacteria from the handle.

Hands should be washed:

• After using the restroom

• After coughing, sneezing or using a tissue

• Before and during food preparation

• If changing from raw to ready to eat food preparation

• Before meals, snacks or refreshment

• After eating, drinking or using tobacco

• After handling or touching pets or other animals

• As often as necessary to remove contamination

• After any activity that might soil the hands

Programme Activities:
Parents can help to protect young children against diarrhoea by adopting certain hygienic practices. One very important practice is hand-washing. This programme will promote and educate about washing hands with soap as a habit and a way of life for the people in Maharashtra.

Promotion will be of good hand-washing procedures which requires the use of soap (or a local substitute), plenty of water, and careful cleaning of all parts of the hands. If water is scarce, it can be used more than once to wash hands. It can then be used to wash the floor, to clean the latrine, or to irrigate the vegetable garden.

Families will be advised to create a place within the home for hand-washing. This should have a wash basin, a container for water, and soap (or a local substitute).

All members should wash their hands well:

• after cleaning a child who has defecated, or after disposing of a child's stool;

• after defecating;

• before preparing food;

• before eating;

• before feeding a child.

An adult or older sibling should wash the hands of young children.

Intended Results:
Through promotion of correct hand-washing procedures, and education about why this is necessary, families and members of the community will become more aware of the necessity and importance about hand-washing. Episodes of diarrhoea will be significantly decreased through this habit.

Programme Management and Implementation:
Messages and information about proper hand-washing procedures will be provided to mothers, health care providers, and the general public through training programmes, TV and radio broadcasts, and instructive pamphlets. The materials designed for and used in the program will be pre-tested to ensure clarity and success on a larger scale. Additionally, to ensure the sufficient availability of soap, campaigns, collaborated with local manufacturers will be used to promote this practice.

Programme Monitoring and Evaluation:
Initially programme monitoring will ensure that soap is available and instructional material is reaching the targeted audiences. Eventually, monitoring will check recall, understanding, and application of correct hand-washing practices among all members of the community. Statistics on those washing hands with soap when recommended will be evaluated and compared to statistics before program implementation. The program will be accommodated as necessary.

Learning and Dissemination:

The results of the initiative include improvements in handwashing behaviour associated with reductions in diarrhoeal disease, leveraging of significant additional resources for public health, and sustained involvement of the private sector partners in public health promotion.


Related Resources:

 

Health & Hygiene Kit - Sesame Workshop Sesame Workshop is the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street and other educational children’s media. They create innovative and engaging educational content for children from birth to age 12 in over 120 countries worldwide. In India, as elsewhere, their unique approach brings together local experts to determine educational goals based on the specific needs of children in the country. 1. A poster on hand washing553 kb   2. Activity worksheets for children   3. Caregiver guides to create/design activities related to hand washing   4. Set of Sequencing cards   5. Set of flash cards on healthy habits

The Handwashing Handbook 79 pages 661 kb

A Guide for Developing a Hygiene Promotion Program to Increase Handwashing with Soap

The Handwashing Handbook lays out the experiences of the Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing in a practical guidance document. The Handbook is designed for staff in governments and development organizations charged with carrying out handwashing programs. Decision makers in ministries and funding agencies will also find assistance in designing policies and programs to improve public health. The Handbook outlines a large-scale approach to handwashing promotion and covers laying the foundation for a national program, consumer research, program implementation, and organization.


Handwashing for Diarrheal Disease Prevention 102 pages 2.5 mb

The Story of a Successful Public-Private Partnership in Central America

Camille Saadé, Massee Bateman, Diane B. Bendahmane. Published by the Basic Support for Child Survival Project (BASICS II), the Environmental Health Project, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United States Agency for International Development, and The World Bank. Arlington, Virginia, September 2001.

The Central American Handwashing Initiative aimed to reduce morbidity and mortality among children under five through a coordinated communication campaign promoting proper handwashing with soap to prevent diarrheal disease. The Initiative was conceived and facilitated by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through two of its projects: Basic Support for Institutionalizing Child Survival (or BASICS) and the Environmental Health Project (EHP).

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
"The Dangers of Dirt: Household Hygiene and Health" by V. Curtis,

"Actions Speak: The study of hygiene behaviour in water and sanitation projects" IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

"Happy, Healthy and Hygienic: How to Set up a Hygiene Promotion Programme" UNICEF, LSHTM

"Interventions for the control of diarrhoeal diseases among young children: improving water supplies and excreta disposal facilities", S.A. Esrey, R.G. Feachem and J.M. Hughes. Bulletin of the WHO, 63(4):757-772 (1985)

"Interventions for the control of diarrhoeal diseases among young children: promotion of personal and domestic hygiene", Feachem, R.G. Bulletin of the WHO, 61: 641-652 (1983).

"Preventing Diarrhoea: what are the policy options?", R.G.Feachem, Health Policy and Planning 1986:1(2):109-117.

"Improving Water and Sanitation Hygiene Behaviours for the reductions of diarrhoel disease: The Report of an Informal Consultation", Community Water Supply and Sanitation Unit (CWS), WHO, 1993.

"Review: Domestic hygiene and diarrhoea - pinpointing the problem"
V. Curtis, S. Cairncross and R. Yonli, Tropical Medicine and International Health, 5(1):22-32.

"Dirt, Disgust and Disease: Is hygiene in our genes?"
V. Curtis and A. Biran. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44(1), 2001.

"Structured Observations of hygiene behaviours in Burkina Faso: validity, variability and utility"
V., S. Cousens, T. Mertens, E. Traore, B. Kanki, I. Diallo. Bulletin of the WHO, 71(1):23-32, 1993.

Effect of handwashing on child health: a randomised controlled trial -  The Lancet, Volume 366, Number 9481, 16 July 2005

Handwashing With Soap Key to Reducing Burden of Childhood Disease  -  The Lancet

Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions to reduce diarrhoea in less developed countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis  -  The Lancet

Handwashing  -  The Lancet

Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review  -  The Lancet
 

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