WELL Factsheet: Hygiene promotion

For health experts, hygiene is behaviour that serves to prevent infection. Hygienic behaviour also helps to keep people and their environments clean, ordered and attractive (Curtis, 2001). Efforts to promote hygiene currently focus around three practices, for which there is strong evidence of a health benefit. These are: handwashing with soap (HWWS), the removal of stools from the household environment and the home treatment of drinking water (see box). The neglect of other practices such as the unsafe disposal of children’s stools and the unsafe handling of weaning food can cause health problems in some settings, but has had less attention.

Produced by WEDC and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for the Department of International Development (DFID) of the UK government (now the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)), this archive collection of WELL factsheets remains relevant. It covers topics ranging from the anaerobic treatment of municipal wastewater through to water quality and safety plans.