Inspection
September - 2007

 

Leaders have foresight
12.sep.07
Barfblog post
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2007/09/articles/culture-of-food-safety/leaders-have-foresight/
The Western Mail writes in a scathing editorial this morning that the conditions in some Welsh schools, outlined in the final report of the  E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005 that left a five-year-old dead and over 100 sick, would shame the Third World.
"It's time to ensure children are not placed in environments which are breeding grounds for disease ... to tolerate a situation where  
schools do not have toilet rolls, soap or hot water is reprehensible." Hindsight is 20-20. What does it take to have foresight, to realize  
it's not enough to tell someone to wash their hands, but to also remove any barriers to handwashing and ensure the proper tools --  
soap and paper towel -- are available.

 

AMERICA’s Clean Hands Report Card: Students barely pass; Parents average just a “C”
07.sep.07
From a press release
WASHINGTON D.C. -- In The Soap and Detergent Association's 2007 Clean Hands Report Card, students are receiving less-than-stellar grades on basic hand hygiene. Parents should hit the books too. School nurses and health professionals come out on top. And teachers aren’t far behind.
The overall grade of C shows that all of us can do better when it comes to proper hand hygiene practices (though it is a slight improvement from the overall C- given on the 2006 Report Card).
School nurses/health professionals surveyed by SDA received pretty good marks – averaging a B+. Teachers notched a B-. Parents earned a C, but moms (B-) were much better than dads (D+).
Students, however, really need to do their homework: they received a grade of D.
The 2007 Report Card is based on an omnibus telephone survey of parents of school-age children and on-site surveys at conferences attended by teachers, school nurses/health professionals and students.
The survey questioned respondents’ hand hygiene behavior and knowledge of the importance of regularly cleaning one’s hands throughout the day.
“With cold and flu season coming up, good hand hygiene is vital to infection control. Cleaning our hands is especially critical at school and at work, where germs lurk in every corner and in every handshake,” said Nancy Bock, SDA Vice President of Education.
“This year’s ‘Most Likely To Succeed’ will be the person who practices a simple three-step process: Wet, lather and rinse.”
SDA offers the following refresher course for effective hand washing:
1. Wet hands with warm running water prior to reaching for the soap, either in bar or liquid form.
2. Rub hands together to make a lather. Do this away from running water, so the lather isn’t washed away.
3. Wash the front and back of your hands, between your fingers and under the nails. Continue washing for at least 15-20 seconds.
4. Rinse hands well under warm running water.
5. Dry hands thoroughly with a clean towel or air dryer.
6. Hand sanitizers or hand wipes are useful alternatives if soap and water are not available (for example, when traveling in the car or taxi on the way to a business meeting, before eating a meal or snack on the plane, or in the school cafeteria, etc.).
More information on hand hygiene is available online at www.cleaning101.com/handhygiene.
Report Card Summary
The following brief summary offers a review of how the different groups fared on the Clean Hands Report Card (SM):
School Nurses/Health Professionals – Overall Grade: B+
Not surprisingly, school nurses/health professionals report having the most knowledge about the benefits of hand hygiene – and put it into practice. Nearly every single respondent knows that cleaning hands regularly is the number one way to prevent colds and flu. Further, 64% washed their hands more than 10 times each day. A near-perfect amount (97%) report always washing hands after going to the bathroom, while a majority report always or frequently washing hands before eating lunch and after coughing and sneezing. But 44% lather their hands with soap for less than the recommended 15-20 seconds.
Teachers: Overall Grade: B-
Like school nurses and health professionals, teachers seem to understand the importance of clean hands in preventing colds and flu (98%). Yet they do not always put this knowledge into practice, with only passable marks on always washing hands at three key touch points (after bathroom use, before lunch and after coughing or sneezing).
Parents: Overall Grade: C
The very mixed responses provided by parents show how much education is needed coming into cold and flu season. A full 50% fail to note the number one way to prevent colds and flu (“clean hands regularly”) and almost one-third (31%) seldom or never wash their hands after coughing or sneezing. Yet at the same time, most parents always wash their hands after going to the bathroom (76%) and before eating lunch (93%) and almost one-third (32%) do say that they lather their hands for more than 20 seconds each time – the highest percentage of any of the groups surveyed.
But mothers are better than fathers when it comes to hand hygiene. Dads are significantly more likely than moms to report they never wash their hands after they cough or sneeze (17% vs. 3%), while moms are more likely to report that they always do (38% vs. 21%). Moms are also more likely than dads to report that they always wash their hands after going to the bathroom (97% vs. 89%).
Students - Overall Grade: D
Of all the groups studied, students demonstrate an immediate need for across-the-board education about clean hands. Handwashing simply is not a priority for this group: a full one-fifth (22%) do not wash their hands every time they use the bathroom; 31% seldom or never wash their hands before eating lunch and more than two-thirds (41%) seldom or never wash their hands after coughing or sneezing.
SDA, which has been educating the public about health and hygiene issues since 1926, offers a range of resources for parents, educators, and students at its website: www.cleaning101.com.
The 2007 Clean Hands Report Card (SM) was based on the following surveys:
• An omnibus telephone survey of 664 parents/guardians (311 male and 353 female) of children in grades K-12. The independent consumer research study was conducted July 26 – August 5, 2007 on behalf of SDA, by International Communications Research (ICR). The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percent.
• School nurses, health professionals, students and teachers completed surveys at a series of conferences in June and July 2007. Those conferences included the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS), the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) and the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). Of the 1,190 surveys collected, 508 self-identified as teachers, 356 as health professionals (nearly 9 out of 10 were school nurses) and 326 as students.
A more detailed summary of the survey results is available at http://www.cleaning101.com/newsroom/surveys/
The Soap and Detergent Association (www.cleaning101.com), the Home of the U.S. Cleaning Product Industry (SM), is the non-profit trade association representing manufacturers of household, industrial, and institutional cleaning products, their ingredients and finished packaging; oleochemical producers; and chemical distributors to the cleaning product industry. SDA members produce more than 90 percent of the cleaning products marketed in the U.S. The SDA is located at 1500 K Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20005.