One would not have thought there was a need for a Global Handwashing Day, but apparently there is, and it took place on Oct. 15, with activities throughout the world, featuring soap. (Much to the edification, one feels sure, of Colgate-Palmolive, a major corporation that helped to initiate the day in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control, UNICEF and the World Bank, among others.)
Canadian health officials may have been too busy squabbling over the efficacy of handwashing as a way to prevent influenza transmission to pause and celebrate Global Handwashing Day, but British participants marked the occasion by handing out Golden Poo Awards to fellow citizens who have made “outstanding contributions” to the fields of hygiene and sanitation.
Meanwhile, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine released a study they deemed “particularly important on Global Handwashing Day,” pointing out that most people will not wash their hands in public toilets unless you shame them.
This, they discovered by monitoring a quarter of a million people who trotted in and out of washrooms, unaware that the sinks were outfitted with sensors and that it would soon be announced to the world that less than a third of British gentlemen wash their hands after zipping up their trousers.
Twice as many women did, but this may due to the messages flashing on LED screens at the entrance to the toilets, that asked, “Is the person next to you washing with soap?” A rather neat psychological trick, that one.
Men, the study’s authors report, reacted more hygienically to the disconcerting message “soap it off or eat it later.” In addition to embarrassing their nation, the researchers were trying to find out what kind of messaging will work, so that money could be spent more effectively on future health campaigns.
Persuading people to wash their hands is easier said than done, as numerous studies of even hospital staff have demonstrated. Despite the clear risk of infection from superbugs and other agents, proper handwashing by doctors, nurses and other health-care workers has ranged from atrocious (less than 10 per cent) to middling (about 60 per cent of the staff) in Canada, Britain and the U.S.
This is astonishing, considering that it was back in the 19th century that the Austro-Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis proved the importance of handwashing, in the face of scoffing resistance from his colleagues.
Canadian hospitals are beginning to develop formal hand-hygiene policies, but habits are as hard to forge as they are to break. A little incentivizing might be in order, although one would rather not have to choose between shame and a Golden Poo.
CTVglobemedia Publishing, Inc
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