The goal of rural water and sanitation investments is sustainable, long-term solutions to service challenges—yet donors and practitioners rarely measure the durability of project outcomes. Evaluations conducted midstream or shortly after project completion fail to adequately capture what water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) approaches are sustainable.
Regular hand washing is one of the most important ways we can avoid becoming sick and passing germs to other people.
While handwashing has been acknowledged as a way to prevent the spread of infection, experts agree that we still aren’t making enough progress on increasing uptake of this behavior. A systematic review revealed that in 2015, only 26 percent of people globally washed their hands with soap after contact with feces.
October 15, 2019, is Global Handwashing Day (GH Day), an annual advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap. This year’s theme is “Clean Hands for All,” which gives much needed attention to the marginalized groups that lack access to handwashing facilities or face discrimination in the provision of handwashing and other water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services.
In a crisis, humanitarians are often responsible for providing or repairing handwashing infrastructure for the affected population. This creates an opportunity for us to build infrastructure and provide products which encourage people to practice handwashing with soap.
Wash'Em developed this guide to assist humanitarian actors in designing handwashing facilities that can actually change behavior.
The January to June 2019 Handwashing Research Index is the result of a collaboration between the Global Handwashing Partnership and the USAID Water Communications and Knowledge Management Project. The index includes 36 peer-reviewed studies from 2019 that explore handwashing in connection with diverse programmatic areas.
Celebrated annually on October 15, Global Handwashing Day (GH Day) is an annual global advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.
SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands brings people together in support of hand hygiene improvement globally and to progress the goal of maintaining a global profile on hand hygiene in health care. The campaign aims to galvanise action at the point of care to demonstrate that hand hygiene is the entrance door for reducing health care-associated infection and patient safety. It also aims to demonstrate the world's commitment to this priority area of health care.
The findings in this first multi-country review of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health care facilities (HCFs) are sobering. Drawing on data from 54 low- and middle-income countries, the report concludes that 38% lack access to even rudimentary levels of water, 19% lack sanitation and 35% do not have water and soap for handwashing. When a higher level of service is factored in, the situation deteriorates significantly.
The Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) 2018 Handwashing Research Index is a research summary meant is to increase the research focus on handwashing. In 2018, they found 155 studies which explore handwashing in connection with diverse programmatic areas in global health and development, varying from urban design to maternal and child health. They selected these entries selected from peer-reviewed literature published in 2018.
