Washing hands with soap helps prevent diarrhea, respiratory diseases and soil-transmitted helminth infections. In Vietnam, handwashing with soap (HWWS) is taught to all first-grade students as part of national curriculum through 1-hour sessions, titled “Body hygiene”. Still, most children—like most adults[1]—don’t wash their hands after defecating. However, a recent study found that simple “nudges” significantly increased handwashing after latrine visits at two schools in Bangladesh (Dreibelbis et al, 2016). While Chase and Do (2012) found that a large scale handwashing campaign in Vietnam had virtually no impact on the frequency of handwashing among “caregivers” (i.e. mothers with small children), the Bangladeshi study reported that the percentage of children practicing HWWS after a visit to the school latrine increased from 4% to 74%.
Given the results of the Bangladeshi study, we sought to answer five questions:
[1] Freeman et al (2014) estimated that only 19% of the world population washes hands with soap after contact with excreta.
For the full study and results, see here: Nudging A Habit Handwashing In Schools
At the heart of our programs are strong partnerships with government, private sector, civil society groups, and local communities. We also implement learning and feedback strategies to strengthen our approaches to promoting gender and socially inclusive WASH practices in our partner communities.