Technical guide for handwashing facilities in public places and institutions Om Prasad Gautam, Babazile Bhembe, Lindsay Denny, Lara Kontos, Joana Da Cunha Forte, Golam Muktadir and John Knight (2024)
Hand hygiene is a key line of defence for many diseases, including diarrhoea and cholera. To maintain good hand hygiene and get more people into the habit of regularly washing their hands, public handwashing facilities with soap and water are essential.
For many years, we have worked with governments, UNICEF and other organisations to install handwashing facilities in a range of public places and buildings, including markets, transport hubs, public and communal toilets, healthcare facilities, schools, restaurants, places of worship, and commercial and public offices.
To support this work, and partly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we designed the first Technical guide for handwashing facilities in public places and buildings in August 2020.
COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks accelerated the provision of handwashing facilities in public places, but many were temporary so there is still a need for more permanent and semi-permanent facilities. COVID-19 also resulted in hands-free innovations in many facilities, but many of these designs were not robust and broke easily. There is also limited evidence of disease transmission through touching taps. The emphasis now is on designing more long-term, sustainable public handwashing facilities, rather than contactless ones.
This revised version of the technical guide includes additional advice on installing permanent and semi-permanent handwashing facilities – sharing designs, bills of quantities, construction notes, and guidance around management, operations and maintenance. Based on our experiences of implementing public handwashing facilities with UNICEF, it evaluates each technology’s advantages and disadvantages to support informed decision making, and includes safety and accessibility checklists to make facilities more inclusive. Finally, there are monitoring checklists to ensure facilities are operated and maintained well, and repaired quickly.
Bibliographic information
Om Prasad Gautam, Babazile Bhembe, Lindsay Denny, Lara Kontos, Joana Da Cunha Forte, Golam Muktadir and John Knight (2024). Technical guide for handwashing facilities in public places and institutions WaterAid & UNICEF
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Health and hygieneBehaviour change (WG13)English
