Foster and support a general culture of handwashing with soap in all societies
Shine a spotlight on the state of handwashing in each country
Raise awareness about the benefits of handwashing with soap.
Activities
Each year, over 200 million people celebrate Global Handwashing Day.
Examples
On 15 October 2014, Madhya Pradesh, an Indian state, won the Guinness World Record for the most massive handwashing program. There were 1,276,425 children in 51 different districts participating.
Sometimes, groups choose to celebrate GHD on other dates than 15 October. In Ethiopia, 300 people celebrated Global Handwashing Day in Addis Ababa on 1 November in 2013.
2019 - Clean Hands for All. In the USA, the US CDC used the theme Life is Better with Clean Hands and launched throughout the USA a national hand hygiene campaign targeting adults who are parents and caregivers in communicating the importance of handwashing before cooking at home and after using the bathroom when out in public. They used ideas such as 'Handwashing: a family activity' and 'Handwashing: A healthy habit in the kitchen' when focusing on parent' educational roles with their children.
2018 - Clean hands - a recipe for health.
2017 - Our hands, our future.
2016 - Make handwashing a habit.
2015 - Raise a hand for hygiene.
2014 - Clean hands save lives. In 2014, Global Handwashing Day was used as an opportunity to fight Ebola. In Nigeria, for example, Concern Universal and Carex sponsored events featuring singer Sunny Neji.
2013 - The power is in your hands.
2012 - I am a handwashing advocate.
2011 - Clean hands save lives.
2010 - Children and Schools.
2009 - Spread the word, not the germs.
2008 - The focus for Global Handwashing Day's inaugural year in 2008 was school children. In that year, the members pledged to get the maximum number of school children handwashing with soap in more than 70 countries. In India in 2008, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his teammates joined an estimated 100 million schoolchildren around the country in lathering up for better health and hygiene as part of the first Global Handwashing Day.
Background
The campaign was initiated to reduce childhood mortality rates and related respiratory and diarrheal diseases by introducing simple behavioral changes, such as handwashing with soap. This simple action can reduce the mortality rate of respiratory disease by 25%. Death from diarrheal diseases can be reduced by 50%. Across the world, more than 60 percent of health workers do not adhere to proper hand hygiene. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US health care providers, on average, wash their hands less than half of the time they should. On any given day, one in 25 US hospital patients has at least one health care-associated infection.
Importance of handwashing
Handwashing with soap is very effective and the least expensive way to prevent diarrhea and acute respiratory infections. Pneumonia, a major ARI, is the number one cause of mortality among children under five years old, killing an estimated 1.8 million children per year. Diarrhea and pneumonia together account for almost 3.5 million child deaths annually. Handwashing with soap is estimated to reduce cases of diarrhea by 30% and respiratory infections by 21% in children under the age of five. It is important to make handwashing into a habit. Good handwashing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into a regular habit can save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter. Handwashing is usually done together with other sanitation interventions as part of water, sanitation and hygieneWASH programmes. The Global Handwashing Day helps raise awareness of the importance of washing with soap, but it also makes it fun for children to get involved. Proper hygiene requires that individuals know the importance of good hygiene and develop the habits to carry it out. There are people with plenty of money but nonetheless, they lack the important habits of timely handwashing with soap, and thereby unknowingly endanger themselves and others around them. Peer influence is significant to seeing increased handwashing among students. In a study conducted in Kenya, researchers found that students were much more likely to wash their hands when another student is present. Peer influence is only successful, however, when students know that handwashing is a desirable action.
The US Peace Corps volunteers have contributed to observation of Global Handwashing Day.
Global Handwashing Day supports the 2013 Water for the World Act'', which aims to improve effectiveness and efficiency of that part of U.S. foreign aid which is committed to global water, sanitation, and hygiene by ensuring that funds will reach the neediest human populations who require WASH interventions the most.
Campaign effectiveness
A 2012 study from China attempted to qualitatively assess Chinese social media users’ reactions to Global Handwashing Day 2012, in particular, and to health promotion campaigns in general. They concluded that social media data in China can be used to evaluate public health campaigns in China.
