What Gets People to Wash Their Hands? : Impact Evaluation Evidence from Peru and Vietnam
Hand washing with soap and water is a simple way to reduce the spread of disease. It doesnt require complicated technology, its usually affordable and even young children can do it. Yet many people dont wash their hands when they should: before tou...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English en_US |
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Washington, DC
2015
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/07/18101050/gets-people-wash-hands http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22609 |
| Summary: | Hand washing with soap and water is a
simple way to reduce the spread of disease. It doesnt
require complicated technology, its usually affordable and
even young children can do it. Yet many people dont wash
their hands when they should: before touching food, after
using the toilet or after cleaning a babys bottom. Campaigns
to remind people to wash their hands arent always
successful, even in places where both soap and water are
easy to find. For health experts, the problem is puzzling.
Bacteria, parasites and viruses can easily spread when
people dont wash their hands, putting children at risk of
potentially fatal diarrheal and respiratory infections. The
World Bank is committed to ending poverty and giving
everyone an equal chance in life, and promoting healthy
habits can help make this happen. There are so many things
that can conspire to keep people poor: bad education and few
jobs usually come to mind first. But poor health can be as
devastating, if not more so, to a persons ability to create,
find and utilize opportunities. Illness drains finances and
keeps people out of school and work. For young children, the
results can be deadly: diarrhea is the second leading cause
of death in children under the age of 5, and this despite
the fact that its both preventable and treatable. As these
studies underscore, changing behavior is difficult. The two
studies taken together build on existing evidence showing
that handwashing campaigns must move beyond traditional mass
media into more personalized and intensive programs at the
community and institutional level. Further research into how
such approaches can be deployed on a large scale is needed,
as is a better understanding of other environmental factors
and fecaloral transmission pathways that can spread
illnesses. This Evidence to Policy note was jointly produced
by the World Bank Group, the Strategic Impact Evaluation
Fund (SIEF), and the British governments Department for
International Development. |
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