On October 21, 2015, the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing (PPPHW) and FHI 360 co-hosted a hygiene advocacy event, “What the “H” is the big deal with hygiene?” The event focused on why the “H” in WASH should be silent no longer and how we can help build and maintain the momentum around this crucial component of health and development both in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and beyond. The event was live streamed and a recording will be made available on the PPPHW website. You can follow the live twitter feed from the learning event here.
Forty attendees from NGOs, universities, and multilateral institutions learned about how Global Handwashing Day was marked around the world, why a hygiene indicator should be included in the Global Goals, and how habits can be leveraged for behavior change. Attendees learned from experts why handwashing matters as we begin to work on the Global Goals, what is new in this old behavior, and how the latest in hygiene behavior change can be applied more widely. To kick off the event, Hanna Washburn, Director of the PPPHW Secretariat spoke on the status of hygiene and why handwashing matters,in the upcoming Global Goals.
WASHplus’s Deputy Director and Behavior Change Specialist Julia Rosenbaum spoke on the latest in hygiene behavior change. Julia’s talk focused on the science of habit as a crucial tool for making hygiene the norm. She spoke about habit formation and how we can make handwashing reflexive (a habit), not reflective. During her presentation Julia also discussed the six underlying principles of a strategy for creating handwashing habits to trigger cues & practice.
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