Hygiene - Importance and Practices

Hygiene encompasses practices that promote health and prevent the spread of illness by maintaining cleanliness and sanitation.
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Public Health | Sanitation | Infection Control | Cleanliness | Personal Hygiene | Hygiene Practices
Prepared by Lee Cheng, reviewed by Dr. Helena Rodriguez

Hygiene FAQ


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What does hygiene mean?

Get a quick, free translation! HYGIENE definition: 1. the degree to which people keep themselves or their environment clean, especially to prevent…. Learn more.

What is a hygiene practice?

Hygiene is a practice related to lifestyle, cleanliness, health, and medicine. In medicine and everyday life, hygiene practices are preventive measures that reduce the incidence and spread of germs leading to disease. Hygiene practices vary from one culture to another.

Why is good hygiene important?

Good hygiene is critical for preventing the spread of infectious diseases and helping children lead long, healthy lives. It also prevents them from missing school, resulting in better learning outcomes. For families, good hygiene means avoiding illness and spending less on health care.

What are the different types of Hygiene?

Cleaning processes (e.g., handwashing ) remove infectious microbes as well as dirt and soil, and are thus often the means to achieve hygiene. Other uses of the term are as follows: body hygiene, personal hygiene, sleep hygiene, mental hygiene, dental hygiene, and occupational hygiene, used in connection with public health .

What is good food hygiene?

Good food hygiene means knowing how to avoid the spread of bacteria when cooking, preparing, and storing food. Foods that aren’t cooked, stored and handled correctly can cause food poisoning and other conditions. There are 4 basic steps to food safety at home, these are known as the four C’s:

Is hand hygiene a problem in health care facilities?

Despite its simplicity, hand hygiene is still poorly practiced in many health care facilities. 1 in 4 health care facilities do not have basic water services, which means that 1.8 billion people currently lack basic water services at their health care facility, while 712 million have no running water at their health care facility.

What are Culinary hygiene practices?

Culinary hygiene practices specify safe ways to handle, store, prepare, serve, and eat food. Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness.

Where does the word Hygiène come from?

First attested in English in 1676, the word hygiene comes from the French hygiène, the latinisation of the Greek ὑγιεινή ( τέχνη) hygieinē technē, meaning " (art) of health", from ὑγιεινός hygieinos, "good for the health, healthy", in turn from ὑγιής ( hygiēs ), "healthful, sound, salutary, wholesome".

Hygiene References

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