Hand washing Behavior Research Summary

How often do you wash your hands after using a toilet?

Research indicates that surveys do not capture the reality based on observational evidence. People report higher levels than have been observed.

Americans appear to be washing their hands more than in the past. Data from 2010 indicate an observation-based rate at 85% compared to 77% in 2007.

American women wash their hands more than men after using a public restroom: women 93%, men 77% (2010). By subtraction, we observe the dirty hands rate below.

The percentage of unwashed American hands after using a public restroom were men 23%, women 7% in 2010.

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In washing hands research, look for these details.

Did they assess by electronic sensor, direct observation, video recording, person-person survey, online or paper survey?
Did they check for soap and water compared to water only?

What we want in hand washing studies are unobtrusive observations of large numbers of people and data for use of water, soap, and / or sanitizers as well as how long they spent washing.

The CDC recommends 20 seconds--see details (https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html)

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Student Research (1997)

Hand washing rates for secondary school students are much lower than for adults. Here are the results from a 1997 study of 120 students. Girls (58%) washed their hand more than boys (48%) after using a restroom. There is a big however!

Low rates of soap use when students wash their hands(1997): Girls (28%), boys (8%).

University student study (2003)
Women (61%) washed their hands more than men (37%). But, check this out.

Adding a sign to wash your hands changed the hand washing rates: Women's rates increased (61 to 97%), men's rates declined (37 to 35%).

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Washing with soap and water in Britain
A large scale study (n = 198,000) revealed low rates of hand washing with soap at highway service stations: women 65%, men 32%.

The British study used electronic sensors over a 32-day period.

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Carl Borchgrevink and his team (2013) at Michigan State University conducted a large study of 3, 749 university students at various locations in the town. See the study for details regarding the presence of signs in restrooms and the various conditions of the restrooms.

Some findings (rounded results)
67% washed their hands with soap and water after using the restroom.
23% wet their hands but did not use soap after using the restroom.
10% did not wash their hands at all after using the restroom.

The findings in this post were taken from the Borchgrevnik article retrieved from

https://msutoday.msu.edu/_/pdf/assets/2013/hand-washing-study.pdf

For the science behind hand washing see https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-handwashing.html

For handwashing research see

https://globalhandwashing.org/learn/latest-research/

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