CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (Chambana Today) — With C-U area students returning to school, it’s important to remind your child about the importance of limiting the spread of infectious diseases by washing their hands.

Whether it be coming into contact with friends or touching books or other shared surfaces at school, it’s important to stress the importance of handwashing when back at school.

In May, the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) launched the Hands In For Handwashing campaign to raise awareness about the importance of handwashing to help stop the spread of infectious diseases. The campaign included a State of Handwashing report, which provided some discouraging news.

The report found that only 33% of respondents report washing their hands more now than they did during the COVID-19 pandemic. Men were more likely to not wash their hands at key times than women.

A more startling fact is that nearly half of adults (48%) admitted to forgetting or deciding not to wash their hands at important times, like after shopping, eating at a restaurant, or visiting a healthcare setting.

“I was surprised to learn that only half of people wash their hands at key times, because as a nurse, that’s the first thing they teach us – hand washing. Because they want us to keep our patients healthy,” said Breanne Gendron, a nurse practitioner for OSF HealthCare. “Bacteria and viruses live on surfaces and people, and we need to wash our hands, so we don’t spread them amongst each other.”

The top times that adults wash their hands are after using the bathroom, touching food and handling human or animal waste. Washing your hands is a difference maker, especially since 80% of infectious diseases are spread by dirty hands.

“The most important times to protect yourself is before you eat,” Gendron says. “You’re exposed to an exponential number of bacteria when you use the bathroom, just because of how our body’s waste system works.” 

Some other important tips, along with washing your hands, include not touching your face when you’re in public. Using alcohol-based hand sanitizer is good too, but it does not kill all germs. There is not true substitute for washing your hands with soap.

“The most important thing is, when you’re washing you make sure you’re scrubbing in between all the backs, the tops, all the parts of your hands and then rinse, just making sure you’re hitting all of it,” says Gendron.

Gendron says that handwashing is the easiest way to stay healthy and prevent diseases that use direct contact to spread.

For more information on the importance of handwashing, visit the OSF HealthCare website.