# 4713
An interesting report this morning out of New Zealand on the results of an observational study during the recent pandemic.
They looked at how well the public covered their coughs and sneezes at three Wellington locations; a train station, a hospital and a shopping mall
And the answer is . . . not particularly well.
The results of this study were presented this past week at an International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Ga.
This from the Livescience website.
1 in 4 Don't Cover Coughs and Sneezes
By LiveScience Staff
posted: 09 July 2010 12:04 pm ET
During the H1N1 flu (also known as swine flu) pandemic, public health campaigns urged individuals to practice good hygiene habits, but few heeded the advice, according to a new study.
About one out of every four people that researchers observed in public settings failed to cover their mouth when they coughed or sneezed, and less than 5 percent of people covered their mouth using methods recommended by health officials.
"This study showed a low prevalence of recommended respiratory hygiene behaviors suggesting that hygiene messages promoted in mass media campaigns have not been seen and/or have not been readily adopted by the public in this city," said Nick Wilson of Otago University Wellington in New Zealand, an author on the study.
It’s a good article, so read the whole thing.
A disappointing result, given the level of public service announcements in play at the time.
The authors caution that these results may not translate to other regions, but I’ve no reason to believe that the residents of New Zealand are any less fastidious or hygienic than those living in other developed countries.
Last September I wrote an essay called `Being A Sneeze Guard’, where I told of my encounter at a local grocery store checkout line with a sneezing, coughing, and decidedly unrepentant cashier.
And several months before the pandemic began, I wrote a piece called `Doing The Hand Jive’, which looked at a 2007 market research study on hand washing by HarrisInteractive.
They conducted telephone interviews, and then discreetly staked out public restrooms at 6 venues in 4 American cities to observe how many people actually washed their hands before leaving the restroom.
While nine in ten (92%) adults surveyed claimed they always washed their hands after using public restrooms; just over three in four (77%) were observed doing so (down from 83% in 2005).
Men were less likely to wash their hands than women, with only 66% stopping to wash, as opposed to 88% of women.
Something to think about the next time someone offers to shake hands with you.
Which is why I’ve carried one of those little bottles of alcohol gel with me for years.
The CDC has some excellent resources on handwashing, including this video called `Put Your Hands Together'.
(Click for CDC Video on Hand Hygiene)
A collection of Hand Washing posters can be found at:
As far as the best way to cover your coughs and sneezes?
This short video made by a group of students at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health shows us how.
It doesn’t take a pandemic strain of flu to ruin your whole day, and for tens of thousands of people each year, `regular’ flu proves quite deadly.
Good health habits, such as washing our hands and covering our coughs and sneezes are things we need to do every day so that they become second nature to us.
