ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Danish people demonstrate better hand hygiene before preparing and eating food than their European neighbours, according to a new study.

And Spain comes bottom of the list of 10 European countries in terms of washing their hands before handling food.

The study, published in BMC Public Health, posed questions to consumers based on recommended hand hygiene practices. It also assessed observations in a field study carried out in 90 European households.

Significant differences were found regarding self-reported hand hygiene practices between respondents from the 10 European countries. The overall rank from high to low was: Denmark, Greece, Norway, Romania, Hungary, Germany, UK, Portugal, France and Spain.

"It is worrying that about half the respondents seem to have insufficient hand washing routines to protect themselves and their family members from foodborne infection," state the study authors.

"Even though hand washing is a skill learnt in early childhood, people practice it in different ways and often skip or shorten the WHO recommended procedure."

According to the study, families with members aged over 65 showed a higher tendency to follow proper hand washing practices when handling food compared with those without, while families with children under six were up to twice as likely to wash their hands at critical moments compared with families without children.

The authors now want to conduct further research into the specific barriers influencing hand hygiene practices among high-risk groups such as elderly individuals and families with young children.