WUNRN
http://blogs.unicef.org/2015/08/27/new-data-cast-light-on-poor-hygiene/
Website includes graphs on disparities on handwashing – rural and urban – rich and poor.
HANDWASHING
– HYGIENE – PRIORITIES FOR HEALTH – DATA - GIRLS
Children in Myanmar wash their hands with soap at a hand-washing station. ©
UNICEF/NYHQ2012-2056/Dean
By Robert Bain - 27 August 2015
Just recently was World Water Week. Each year, leaders and experts
meet in Stockholm to discuss global challenges relating to water. This year the
conference celebrated its 25th year, with a specific focus is on water for
development. There also was lots of discussion about the broad spectrum of
water issues ranging from water resources and climate change to access to the
most basic of drinking water and sanitation facilities. There was some, but all
too little debate about the related topic of hygiene.
Four surprising facts on hygiene
It also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the WHO/UNICEF Joint
Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation, whose report at the end of the
Millennium Development Goals showed that 663 million people still
lack an improved source of drinking water and 2.4 billion lack an improved
sanitation facility.The ability to track progress on drinking water and
sanitation during the last twenty-five years has helped to draw attention to
people without basic services and to highlight persistent inequalities both
between and within countries. Until recently, far less attention had been given
to hygiene, which unlike water and sanitation, was not part of the Millennium
Development Goals and has not been systematically tracked at the global level.
An adolescent girl takes part in an handwashing demonstration for a group
of adolescent girls in Chowrapara, Rangpur, Bangladesh. ©
UNICEF/BANA2014-01296/Paul
Of the range of hygiene behaviours considered important for health,
handwashing with soap is a top priority in all settings. Handwashing with soap
is one of the most effective interventions to reduce diarrhoea and pneumonia,
two leading causes of child mortality. But handwashing behaviours are tricky to
measure – people know the “right” answer and are very likely to tell you it if
you ask them directly. For that reason, the most practical approach leading to
reliable measurement of handwashing is observation of the place where hands are
washed and noting the presence of water and soap at that location. This lets
you know whether households have the necessary tools for handwashing and
provides a proxy for their behaviour. Learn more by reading the World Bank’s
Water and Sanitation Program working paper: Practical Guidance for Measuring
Handwashing Behavior.
The data for over 50 countries show consistently low levels of access to
handwashing facilities in many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa
but also Southern Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. For example, in the
Democratic Republic of Congo fewer than one in ten people have access to a
facility. In countries with higher coverage overall, such as Mongolia – the
poorest are greatly disadvantaged: only one in ten have access compared with
almost all of those in the wealthiest quintile (96%). Similarly, people living
in rural areas are less likely to have access to handwashing facilities – as is
the case in Afghanistan where they are only half as likely as people in urban
areas. Explore the available handwashing data for yourself using the interactive dashboard on handwashing.
The great news is that hygiene is part of the new Sustainable Development Goals and is specifically mentioned together with sanitation in Target 6.2 which by 2030 seeks to ‘achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations’. UN member states still need to select an indicator for handwashing to track progress and ensure these ambitions are properly reflected. And you can join the Global Public-Private Partnership for handwashing campaign to advocate for a handwashing SDG indicator. Over the next few years, data will then continue to be collected in household surveys such as the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys and it will become possible to tell whether and how much the situation has improved. The data will also tell us whether the international community is giving hygiene the attention it most surely deserves.