Handwashing
November 2008

UK: Washing hands affects judgment
30.nov.08
Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthSci/Washing_hands_affects_judgement/articleshow/3775840.cms
Barfblog Post
LONDON -- Good health is in your hands, it is often said. And, now a new study has suggested that washing hands is not only an easy way of
preventing infection, but it can also affect one's moral judgement.
Researchers in Britain have carried out the study and found that people who clean themselves are less judgemental — in fact, they are more likely to be lenient before making such judgements, the 'Daily Mail' reported.
According to them, the findings mean jurors who wash their hands may make their verdict less severe — and that people who take shower before voting may be more likely to overlook political misdemeanours.
"We like to think we arrive at decisions because we deliberate, but incidental things can influence us. This could have implications when voting and when juries make up their minds," lead researcher Dr Simone Schnall said.
Dr Schnall and colleagues at Plymouth University came to the conclusion after analysing the impact of washing hands on a group of people.
In the study, 22 people who had washed their hands, and 22 who had not, were made to watch a disgusting scene from the film 'Trainspotting', about heroin addicts. They were then to rate how morally wrong a series of actions were on scale of one to nine with one being acceptable and seven being wrong.
The actions included stealing money from a wallet, lying on a job application, cooking and eating the family dog, killing a dying plane crash survivor to avoid starvation, and abusing a kitten.
All put the actions on the "wrong" side of the scale. But, in results which echo Pontius Pilate washing his hands of Christ's death, those who had washed their hands were less likely to judge the actions as harshly as those who had not, the researchers found.

NEW ZEALAND: Schools to take part in study of improved hand hygiene
22.nov.08
Otago Daily Times
Elspeth McLean
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/32842/schools-take-part-study-improved-hand-hygiene
About 15,000 primary school pupils in 68 Invercargill, Christchurch and Dunedin schools will be involved in a research project to see if improving their hand hygiene makes a difference to absence due to illness in winter terms.
Researchers at the University of Otago are conducting the randomised controlled study next year which has attracted $795,205 of funding from the Health Research Council.
Principal investigator Dr Patricia Priest, who is also a senior lecturer at the university's department of preventive and social medicine, said the study will involve half the participating year 1-6 schools installing alcohol-based hand sanitisers in classrooms which pupils will line up and use before going out to play or for lunch.
The hand sanitiser will be in addition to, not instead of, usual hand-washing facilities in the schools.
The research team, which also includes Drs Rick Audas, Marion Poore, Cheryl Brunton and Ms Jo McKenzie, will also collect the number and length of absences from school pupils and teachers.
A randomly selected sample of children from each school will be followed up after they have been absent to gather information about the reasons for that and the effect of the absences on the rest of the family.

IOWA: "Handwashing 101" teaches students to get rid of germs
21.nov.08
Bulletin Review
Gordon Wolf
http://www.dbrnews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20204688&BRD=2703&PAG=461&dept_id=555123&rfi=6
How many times a day to you wash your hands?
How many times a day do you wash them correctly?
That, in essence, was the message of "Handwashing 101," a program presented to students at Zion Lutheran School in Denison last Friday by Angie Kastner and Lori Hoch from Crawford County Home Health, Hospice & Public Health.
Students were told the "whys," "whens," and "whats" of proper handwashing.
Why? To stop the spread of germs that can make you sick.
Why do you want to stay healthy? If you get sick, vomiting is not fun, you will miss school and playing with your friends and will miss out on fun activities. You will also have homework to make up.
When are good times to wash your hands? After you go to the bathroom, before and after you eat, when you first get to school, after blowing your nose, after playing with animals, after throwing out the garbage, and after playing outside.
Kastner and Hoch advised students to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds - about the time it takes to say the alphabet or sing the chorus of a favorite song.
They said and demonstrated that proper handwashing includes rubbing your hands together enough to make bubbles form, and to be sure to wash between your fingers and to take off jewelry while washing your hands. Germs can be trapped under jewelry. Then rinse off your hands, dry them using a paper towel, and cover your hand with the paper towel when turning off the faucet and opening the door. In this way, germs on the faucet and the door won't be transferred to your hands.
"Handwashing is the number one thing you can do to prevent getting sick," said Kastner.

GEORGIA: Health officials encourage hand washing, keeping sick kids home
20.nov.08
Times-Herald
http://www.times-herald.com/health/Health-officials-encourage-hand-washing-keeping-sick-kids-home-591257
If you have noticed more children seem sick lately than this time last month you are correct. Every year as the weather turns cold and everyone heads indoors we begin to see more illnesses in the community, say public health officials. Congregated settings such as day cares, schools and churches provide a wonderful atmosphere of connectivity for children. However, they also provide common surfaces and close contact for spreading bacteria or viruses.
"In the past month we have seen an increase in the number physicians and school systems reporting fever, vomiting and diarrhea," said Hayla Hall, district 4 public information officer. "This is not uncommon and has not reached a level of great concern as there are many different viruses and bacteria that induce nausea and vomiting. Shigellosis and noroviruses are common causes for such symptoms."
It is common to see shigellosis in daycare settings or young children who are not completely toilet-trained. Shigellosis is an infectious disease caused by a group of bacteria called Shigella. Most people who are infected with Shigella develop diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps starting a day or two after they are exposed to the bacteria. Shigellosis usually resolves in 5 to 7 days. Most Shigella infections are the result of the bacterium passing from stools or soiled fingers of one person to the mouth of another person. This happens when basic hygiene and handwashing habits are inadequate.'
Noroviruses are a group of viruses that cause the "stomach flu," or gastroenteritis. Noroviruses are very contagious and can spread easily from person to person. Viruses are very different from bacteria and parasites, some of which can cause illnesses similar to norovirus infection. Like all viral infections, noroviruses are not affected by treatment with antibiotics, and cannot grow outside of a person's body. The symptoms of norovirus illness usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and some stomach cramping. Sometimes people additionally have a low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a general sense of tiredness. The illness often begins suddenly, and the infected person may feel very sick. In most people the illness is self-limiting with symptoms lasting for about 1 or 2 days. In general, children experience more vomiting than adults.
"In order to prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses, it is important that parents and schools work together," said Dr. Michael Brackett, District 4 medical director. "If your child is ill, please keep them at home until they are well. Children who become ill at school should be sent home quickly. Simply washing your hands before eating and after being around someone who is ill can prevent most if not all of these common illnesses." It is also recommended to practice frequent cleaning of common shared objects such as restrooms, tabletops, remote controls, doorknobs, etc. These practices will help to prevent the spread of illnesses such as colds, the flu, and other viruses in your household, at school, and in the community.

UK: How clean are your hands?
17.nov.08
Times Online
Hannah Fletcher
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/features/article5157777.ece
In the toilets of a service station, at an undisclosed location along a motorway in middle England, Dr Val Curtis is waging a one-woman war on Britain's filthy hands.
As weary travellers flush, zip and button, an electronic message board on the wall flashes: “Washing hands with soap avoids disease... Is the person next to you washing with soap?”
The amount of soap used in any given period is measured by sensors on the dispensers and, when compared with the number of people that enter the washrooms in the same time, gives a depres- singly accurate picture of modern Britain's slovenliness.
Curtis, the director of the Hygiene Centre at the University of London, a co-founder of the Global Partnership for Handwashing with Soap, and all-round hand-washing aficionado, has not collated the final results yet. But even the most disgusting electronic message she could think of, “Soap it off or eat it later”, has failed to elicit a scrum for the soap. “I think what we need to do next is put up a poster with a big photo of poo on it,” she sighs. (Or say Don’t eat poop – dp)
Two years ago, the United Nations declared 2008 to be the International Year of Sanitation. Britain, a nation that has produced sanitation visionaries such as John Snow, who proved that cholera was spread by water, and Edwin Chadwick, who conceived of sewage disposal and piping water into homes, should have been leading the way. Instead, our hands have remained decidedly dirty.

BARFBLOG: Employees must wash hands
07.nov.08
barfblog
Doug Powell
Barfblog Post
“If you think the 10 commandments being posted in a school is going to change behavior of children, then you think ‘Employees Must Wash Hands’ is keeping the piss out of your happy meals. It's not.”
So said Jon Stewart in 2002.
A barfblog reader at North Carolina State sends along this url, a site devoted to the must wash hands concept.
http://mustwashhands.blogspot.com/
Enjoy.

WASHINGTON: Women caught dirty-handed with more types of bacteria, study finds
03.nov.08
USA Today
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-03-hands-bacteria_N.htm?csp=34
WASHINGTON -- Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies.
A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do.
And everybody has more types of bacteria than the researchers expected to find.
"One thing that really is astonishing is the variability between individuals, and also between hands on the same individual," said University of Colorado biochemistry assistant professor Rob Knight, a co-author of the paper.
"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," added lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor in Colorado's department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The researchers aren't sure why women harbored a greater variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to so with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have more acidic skin than women.
Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he said.
They identified 4,742 species of bacteria overall, only 5 of which were on every hand, they report on Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The average hand harbored 150 species of bacteria.

ONTARIO: The inside dirt on washing-up
03.nov.08
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/Opinions/article/460202
Lee Prokaska writes that it is shocking and incomprehensible.
A report from Ontario's auditor general has found that only 28 per cent of doctors in 10 hospitals surveyed washed their hands between patients. That was after a pilot program aimed at improving handwashing practices. Before the program, the handwashing rate among those doctors was an abysmal 18 per cent.
Handwashing is the single most important factor in stopping the spread of infectious disease and stopping outbreaks in health-care facilities. One would think this would be top of mind among doctors, who are highly educated practitioners. It's certainly not rocket science -- it's common sense, soap and water.
And it shouldn't take a reward system to get compliance from doctors. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, for example, launched a major campaign four years ago to improve on its 50 per cent handwashing compliance rate among its doctors. One part of the campaign included Starbucks gift cards for doctors who washed their hands properly. Not surprisingly, it worked.
Providing rewards for performing a task well is not uncommon; how many parents, for example, have resorted to a reward system to get their toddlers to use the potty?
But rewards for doctors to wash their hands? These are well- educated adults who should understand the importance of such a simple element of hygiene. And it's something they should have learned how to do well long before they got to medical school. If it weren't so serious, it would be laughable.