Inexpensive and time-efficient hand hygiene interventions increase elementary school children's hand hygiene rates

Routine hand hygiene has been cited by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a cost-effective and important hygiene measure in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. 1-5 Several studies have explored children's hand hygiene habits, effects of scheduled hand hygiene, hand hygiene environmental barriers, educational programs, and application of various hand hygiene products, all with the aim of increasing the frequency of hand hygiene in children and decreasing absenteeism at school. Though these studies did have merit and achieved statistical significance, sustainability of hand hygiene was not evaluated. 6-9,11-14 In addition, no published peer-reviewed research was found that explored the influence of a verbal cue to action coupled with teacher modeling or hand hygiene education that included a visual experience for the children to see the effectiveness of their hand washing. Therefore, this project focused on 2 interventions. Intervention 1 involved verbal cue to action coupled with teacher modeling of hand hygiene, and intervention 2 involved teacher cue to action, hand hygiene education, and an opportunity for children to see the effectiveness of their hand hygiene efforts.