Which Hygiene Practice Has Both Social and Health Benefits?

livewell
February 12, 2024
Eric kent

Introduction

Hygiene is a crucial part of physical and emotional health. It is a practice that plays a vital role in reducing the possibility of causing infections. Hygiene practices entail the routines that allow you to maintain social and health well-being. Good hygiene also helps you to work effectively and enhance your productivity. Many hygiene practices have social and health benefits, and hand washing is one of them. Let’s explore hand hygiene and its social and health benefits.

What is Hygiene?

Hygiene can be defined as the activity or practice of maintaining yourself and keeping things clean and healthy. Hygiene practices are habits that help to promote your good health as you make sure of your cleanliness. Some of the hygiene practices are:

Brushing your teeth
Taking a bath daily
Washing hands
Face wash
Coughing into your elbow
Shaving

Practising these hygienic activities is crucial for your overall health.

Why Hygiene is Vital?

Taking care of your Hygiene is crucial for many reasons. One main reason is that it is essential for your overall well-being. Hygiene practice prevents infections and diseases. Apart from physical health benefits, personal hygiene is also crucial for social benefits. By practising hygiene, you can prevent the spread of infections in communities. For instance, wearing a mask and washing your hands is hygienic when you have the flu. You stop the disease from spreading in your circle by being hygienic. Not wearing masks or poor hand hygiene can cause the spread of viruses and germs.

Benefits of Hygiene Practices

Hygiene practices have many benefits, including social and health benefits. Hygiene practices can help lower the potentially pathogenic or disease-causing germs that individuals encounter while doing their everyday business. Infectious diseases are caused when you do not take care of your hygiene. Practising hygiene can help you avoid getting sick. Diseases such as gastroenteritis, respiratory infections, COVID-19, scabies, tooth decay, threadworms, and trachoma can be caused by poor hygiene practices. But these diseases can be prevented when you have good hygiene.

Hand Hygiene and Why It Is Important?

Hand hygiene is the activity of washing and cleaning hands to remove dirt, bacteria or other unwanted substances from your hands using liquid wash or soap. It is regarded as a crucial activity to prevent the spreading of disease. It is also one of the most essential elements of infection control activities. We must acknowledge the importance of hand hygiene in the control of infection.

In hospitals, food businesses, residential settings, and industrial settings, hands are a vital source of infection transmission. Infections associated with hands are rising, and in response to that, healthcare practitioners are returning to the fundamentals of infection prevention by implementing basic measures like hand hygiene. The reason why they are emphasising hand hygiene is that hands lower the risk of infection transfer. Scientific data shows that cross-transmission of disease is reduced when hands are appropriately cleaned.

Hand hygiene and social benefits

Hand hygiene is essential for many reasons, and it has many benefits. Besides health benefits, there are social benefits of hand hygiene as well. Some of the social benefits of hand hygiene are discussed below.

Decrease outbreaks in communities

Washing your hands can prevent you from getting sick. It has been studied that hands play a vital in spreading infection in several settings, including industrial, domestic, and healthcare settings. Poor hand hygiene can cause infectious diseases like SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks, which can be transmitted to people around you. Diseases like SARS-CoV-2, which is one of the dangerous diseases, are transferred to other people when you shake hands. These diseases could be the reason for many serious health complications.

It is possible to prevent life-threatening diseases from spreading through hand hygiene. Scientific data suggests that washing your hands properly and regularly can protect you and others from getting sick. You can prevent the spread of disease in your community with good hand hygiene. To learn more about the effectiveness of hand hygiene in preventing the spread of infectious diseases, read https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7115270/.

Increase positive interactions

Regarding social interaction, you need to be confident, content and healthy. Since good hand hygiene prevents you from coming in contact with critical germs and viruses, you become self-assured and know that interacting with people will cause no harm.

It is believed that hand hygiene can build confidence in you. When you practice good hygiene, you become confident to meet people. You interact with people confidently and happily. People enjoy your company when you interact positively and energetically with them. When you are tidy, people around you will greet you favourably.

Reduce absenteeism and improve productivity

From a socioeconomic point of view, maintaining good hand hygiene is crucial. When you adopt the habit of hand washing, you become less sick. At the same time, it helps to prevent diseases from spreading in the environment. Therefore, fewer people get sick. When fewer people get sick, it reduces absenteeism. Being healthy, people can go to work, increasing their productivity.

In addition, economic loss is indirectly reduced because of good hand hygiene. Treating illness at a medical facility can cost you a considerable amount. Therefore, to reduce the cost of medical care, you should invest in hand hygiene because it is a cost-effective method to protect against infectious diseases. Your reliance on antibiotics can be reduced with good hand hygiene.

Hand Hygiene and Health Benefits

Frequent hand washing is essential to stop the spread of bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens responsible for causing severe diseases. Research indicates that hand washing is vital in hospitals because it is sensitive. Patients and practitioners must wash their hands regularly as it helps prevent infectious diseases from spreading in the environment.

Hand hygiene practice has many health benefits; some top health benefits are mentioned below.

Prevent infectious diseases

During the 19th and 20th centuries, various infectious disease outbreaks occurred, and they have become a significant concern for communities. Despite the advanced technology of modern medicine, many infectious diseases are spreading and causing health problems. Personal, home and community hygiene has become vital. It has been studied that hand hygiene can prevent many contagious diseases from spreading.

A recent study found that hand contamination can transmit pathogens and viruses from one person to another. So, hand hygiene is vital to prevent the transmission of pathogens. It is also crucial for the spread of antimicrobial resistance and the prevalence of health-associated infections.

For critical diseases caused by life-threatening viruses such as COVID-19, hand hygiene is the most essential method for its prevalence. We know that this pandemic was a significant threat to human existence. We lost many lives, and there was no cure for it except hand hygiene. We responded to such a severe pandemic by following a key strategy: washing our hands frequently. Hand hygiene helps significantly in preventing serious diseases.

Reduces Spread of Germs

Hand hygiene kills pathogens like Candida spp, methicillin-resistant S. aureus, MDR-Gram-negative bacteria vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus and reduces the spread of germs and pathogens. Hand hygiene is crucial, especially in healthcare settings. Practitioners and nurses are expected to wash their hands regularly to reduce the spread of germs.

In healthcare institutions, many vulnerable people have different types of infectious diseases. In such a setting, the possibility of the spread of germs is high, and people getting affected because of those germs is high as well. However, by practicing hand hygiene, the risk of the spread of germs is reduced. During patient care, when practitioners wash their hands regularly, germs are killed, and the rate of spread of germs is decreased. Read our blog for health points to focus on your health and to learn more about patient care.

Promote overall health

Good hand hygiene also plays a vital role in supporting your overall health. When you regularly wash your hands with soap or sanitizer, bacteria and other microorganisms that can harm your health are killed. When your hands are clean, whatever you eat is healthy. And when you eat healthily, your stomach is healthy.

Studies show that adults and children can improve health outcomes and prevent infectious diseases by washing their hands with soap. In addition, it is one of the most cost-effective means of promoting your overall health.

Reasons Why People Have Poor Hand Hygiene Practice

Washing hands is easy, but many people still do not or cannot practice it. Everyone knows hand hygiene is vital for good health. However, some people still cannot practice it because of the following:

Lack of awareness
Poverty
Having no access to water and other basic facilities

Proper Hand Washing Techniques

Hand hygiene practice is easy, and it has simple steps. Follow these simple yet effective steps to stop germs from spreading and for a healthy community.

First, with clean water, wet your hands. Apply soap, and remember to turn off the tap.
Second, rub your hands together and lather your hands with the applied soap. Remember to lather the back of your hands, fingers and wrist. Lather under your nails because dirt accumulates there.
Then, scrub your hands for at least 10 to 20 seconds.
After that, turn on the tap and rinse your hands with clean water.
Last but not least, it is crucial to dry your hands. Using a towel, you can dry your hands. You can also air dry your hands.

Conclusion

Overall, hygiene practice is crucial as it has social and health benefits. Washing hands is a hygiene practice that has social and health benefits. If you are working in a hospital or another industry, ensuring good hand hygiene is essential. Good hand hygiene helps to stop the spread of germs and other dangerous pathogens from one person to another. This way, you can help to create a healthy community. By practicing hand hygiene, infectious diseases like COVID-19 can be prevented. It is one of the cost-effective methods experts recommend to improve your social and physical health.

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What are the social benefits of hand hygiene practice?

There are social benefits of hand hygiene, such as it helps prevent the spread of diseases from one person to another. You interact positively in social gatherings, knowing you are clean and healthy.

How does hand hygiene help in a healthy lifestyle?

Hand hygiene helps you to have a healthy lifestyle. It prevents you from causing infectious diseases like diarrhea, COVID-19 and respiratory diseases. When you are free from diseases, you live a healthy life.

Is it vital to wash hands for 10 seconds?

Yes, washing your hands for at least 10 seconds is vital. Washing hands for 10 to 20 seconds helps to remove harmful germs. If you wash your hands for less than 10 seconds, germs may not get removed.

Are banana peppers and pepperoncini the same?

No, banana peppers and pepperoncini are not the same. Pepperoncini are also yellow in color, but they taste different from banana peppers. Pepperoncini are spicier in taste, while banana peppers are mildly spicy and sweet.

Do all the germs are killed in one wash?

Washing hands with soap is an effective method to kill most of the harmful germs. However, it cannot destroy all the germs, especially when you wash your hands for a shorter time.

Which method is better to dry hands after washing?

Experts suggest using a clean towel is a better option after washing than air drying, as towels are more practical and effective. You can also use a paper towel to dry your hands.