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No Germs on Me - Hand Washing Campaign

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Hand Washing Project Description

This is an exploratory project to determine the most appropriate interventions to reduce the person to person and environment to person transmission of pathogenic organisms that cause diarrhoea, skin sores and respiratory disease on Indigenous communities in the NT.

The project is divided into three stages each to be run over approximately a year. The focus of stage one is on identifying effective means of promoting hygiene on Indigenous communities. Research indicates that simply teaching people about the health benefits of hand washing does not usually result in substantial behavioural change. Internationally there is an increasing awareness that in order to change handwashing behaviour on a large scale, the principles of industrial marketing need to be applied. The second stage of the project involves the development and implementation of a repair and a maintenance strategy for essential plumbing and the third stage will reinforce key health messages.

The principle strategies that will be undertaken in stage one of the project are as follows:

  1. The development and implementation of a social marketing strategy to promote the benefits of routinely washing hands with soap after key junctures and safely disposing of children's faeces. Formative research will be an integral part of the development of the social marketing strategy. Focus groups will be used to identify those factors that are likely to motivate the target audience to adopt better hygiene practices and barriers to their adoption.
  2. At the trial communities a community development approach will be used to involve community members in developing and implementing their own initiatives to promote handwashing and the safe disposal of children's faeces.
  3. Preliminary investigation into housing maintenance issues at the trial communities will also be undertaken to inform the development and implementation of a comprehensive strategy to improve housing maintenance outcomes in stage two of the project.

Background of Health Issue

Infectious diseases such as respiratory and intestinal infections are the leading causes of hospitalisation for Indigenous infants and children in the NT with rates many times higher than in the non-Indigenous population. Skin infections are also a major contributor to the burden of illness experienced by Indigenous infants and children. These infections impact not only on the health of children in the short term but may also contribute to chronic disease in adulthood.

Rationale for the Project

Human Faeces are the main source of diarrhoeal pathogens; just one gram of human faeces can contain 10 million viruses and one million bacteria. These pathogens pass from an infected host to a new one via various routes. Primary barriers such as sanitation and hand washing after faecal contact have been found to be the most effective means of reducing diarrhoeal disease. Curtis and Cairncross' (2003) recent systematic review of the effect of hand washing with soap indicated that hand washing with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhoeal disease by 42 - 47%.

Whilst it has long been accepted that hand washing provides an important means of preventing the spread of diarrhoeal disease it is only relatively recently that the connection between hand washing and respiratory infections has been recognised. Several studies have shown that hand washing is effective at reducing the rate of respiratory infections in a range of populations. The Karachi Soap Health study found that children younger than five living in households which had received intensive hand washing promotion and who where provided with free soap had a 50% lower incidence of diarrhoea and pneumonia than controls. The same study also found that children younger than 15 had a 35% lower incidence of impetigo.

A number of international studies conducted in a variety of settings including childcare centres and in the homes of urban families in the UK, have shown that people often do not adequately wash their hands after key junctures such as going to the toilet and cleaning up after children who have defecated.

'No Germs on Me' School Song Competition

Entry to this competition was open to all Northern Territory primary and middle schools, (whether private or public) but excluding pre-primary or kindergarten schools, which do not form part of a primary school.

View the full length winning entry:

Contacts

For more information about the project please feel free to contact the Director Environmental Health, Xavier Schobben on
(08) 8922 7152.

References

Curtis, V. and Cairncross, S. 2003. Effect of washing hands with soap on diarrhoea risk in the community: a systematic review. The Lancet Infectious Diseases; 3: 275 - 281.

Curtis, V., Biran, A., Deverell, K., Hughes, C., Bellamy, K. and drasar, B. 2003. Hygiene in the home: relating bugs and behaviour. Social Science and medicine, 57: 657 - 672.

Luby, S. Agboatwalla, M., Painter, J., Altaf, A., Billhimer, W. and Hoekstra, R. 2004. Effect of intensive hand washing promotion on childhood diarrhoea in high risk communities in Pakistan. JAMA 291; 2547 - 2554.

 
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