CDC at Work: Water-related Hygiene

Child washing hands outside under a water spigot

Improving Child Development: A New CDC Handwashing Study Shows Promising Results

Diarrheal diseases are common and largely preventable. Children are at particular risk for diarrhea and other diseases related to poor water, sanitation, and hygiene. A CDC study shows proper hygiene education is a critical step in reducing illness and death from diarrheal disease.

Two bars of soap that are outwardly similar - the original, and a copy with an embedded motion sensor.

Washing Your Hands: Measuring Factors Associated with Respiratory Disease Prevention Through Technology

There is evidence that handwashing with soap can reduce respiratory disease incidence overall, but its role for prevention of clinically-confirmed disease is uncertain in resource-poor countries like Bangladesh. CDC and partners work together to measure the associations between handwashing with soap and influenza and pneumonia.

Chinese school children washing their hands at an outdoor washing station.

Handwashing in the Developing World

Diarrhea and respiratory infections remain leading killers of young children in the developing world, and claim approximately 3.5 million young lives each year. CDC has been studying the role of handwashing in preventing these diseases in developing world settings.

Photo of a nurse demonstrating hand hygiene techniques (excerpted from video).

Hand Hygiene Saves Lives: Patient Admission Video

Protecting patients from the transmission of infectious diseases and from conditions attributable to the care they receive is key to an effective infection prevention and control program. One way CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) has worked to protect the health of patients is by the creation of the Hand Hygiene Saves Lives Patient Admission Video.