Global Handwashing Day

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is a campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their handwashing habits by washing their hands with soap at critical moments throughout each day.

Global Handwashing Day takes place on 15 October of each year. The global campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key approach to disease prevention.^[1]

Background

Pupils of Lupok Central Elementary School Guiuan Eastern Samar, Philippines during the Global Hand Washing Day Celebration in 2015.

Global Handwashing Day 2008 celebrations with celebrities at City Central School in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.

Dry run with kids at City Central School in Cagayan de Oro on how to wash hands with soap during Global Handwashing Day 2008 (Philippines)

Global handwashing day celebrations in Indonesia in 2008

The campaign was initiated to reduce childhood mortality rates and related respiratory and diarrhea diseases by introducing simple behavioral changes, such as handwashing with soap. The simple, accessible action can reduce the rate of mortality from these diseases by almost 25% - 50%, respectively. ^[2]

Importance of handwashing

Hand washing with soap is extremely effective and the most inexpensive way to prevent diarrhea and acute respiratory infections.^[3] Pneumonia, a major ARI, is the number one cause of mortality among children under five years old, taking the life of an estimated 1.8 million children per year. Diarrhea and pneumonia together account for almost 3.5 million child deaths annually.^[4] Handwashing with soap is estimated to reduce incidents of diarrhea by 30% and respiratory infections by 21% in children under the age of five.^[5]

It is important to turn handwashing into a habit. According to the official site, turning hand washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit was projected to save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter.^[6]

Handwashing is usually integrated together with other sanitation interventions as part of water, sanitation and hygiene WASH programmes.

The Global Handwashing Day helps raise awareness of the importance of washing with soap, but it also makes it fun for children to get involved.^[7]

Proper hygiene requires that individuals know the importance of good hygiene and develop the habits to carry it out. Many people with ample incomes lack the important habits of timely handwashing with soap, and thereby unknowingly endanger themselves and others around them.^[8]

Peer influence is significant to seeing increased handwashing among students. In a study conducted in Kenya, researchers found that students were significantly more likely to wash their hands when another student is present.^[9] Peer influence is only successful, however, when students know that handwashing is a desirable action.

Aims

• Foster and support a general culture of handwashing with soap in all societies
• Shine a spotlight on the state of handwashing in each country
• Raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap.

Implementation and management

The Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW) established Global Handwashing Day in 2008 as a way to promote a global and local vision of handwashing with soap.^[5]

Steering Committee members of the PPPHW includes Colgate-Palmolive; FHI 360; The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Procter & Gamble; UNICEF; Unilever; University at Buffalo; USAID; the Water and Sanitation Programme at the World Bank; and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.^[10]

Continued research on handwashing habits and practices is commissioned in conjunction with GHD. In 2011, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA), sponsored a study to assess the handwashing habits of American and Canadian adults, finding that many were not using soap when washing their hands.^[11]

Activities and celebrations

Each year, over 200 million people celebrate Global Handwashing Day.^[12]

Examples

• On 15 October 2014, Madhya Pradesh won the Guinness World Record for the most massive hand washing program.^[13] There were 1,276,425 children in 51 different districts participating.^[13]

• Sometimes, groups choose to celebrate GHD on other dates than 15 October. In Ethiopia, 300 people celebrated Global Handwashing Day in Addis Ababa on November 1 in 2013.^[14]

On October 15, 2015 Lupok Central Elementary School, Guiuan Eastern Samar, Philippines celebrated the Global Hand washing day by doing the proper hand washing before starting classes.

History

Global Handwashing Day was initiated by the Public Private Partnership for Handwashing (PPPHW) in August 2008 at the annual World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden.^[15] This means that the first Global Handwashing Day took place on 15 October 2008. The date was appointed by the UN General Assembly. The year 2008 was also the International Year of Sanitation.^[16]

Themes

• The focus for Global Handwashing Day’s inaugural year in 2008 was school children. In that year, the members pledged to get the maximum number of school children handwashing with soap in more than 70 countries. In India in 2008, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his teammates joined an estimated 100 million schoolchildren around the country in lathering up for better health and hygiene as part of the first Global Handwashing Day.^[17]
• In 2014, Global Handwashing Day was used as an opportunity to fight Ebola.^[18] In Nigeria, for example, Concern Universal and Carex sponsored events featuring singer Sunny Neji.^[19]

Founding bodies

The founding bodies in 2008 included: FHI360 (a nonprofit human development organization based in the US),^[20] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Procter & Gamble, UNICEF, Unilever, World Bank Water & Sanitation Program and the United States Agency for International Development

See also

• Behaviour change (public health)
• Sanitation
• Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
• World Toilet Day
• Menstrual hygiene day

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Global handwashing Day.

• Global Public Private Partnership for Handwashing
• Official site for Global Handwashing Day