Hygiene heroes: a cluster-randomized trial of a hygiene curriculum in Tamil Nadu schools.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases are major causes of illness and school absences for school-aged children. Both can be prevented by handwashing with soap. Unfortunately, at most schools in low-resource settings, soap and water are rarely present and, if present, rarely used. As part of a longer-term project, we have been working with the Tamil Nadu school system on improving the hygiene practices of students since 2015. We have designed a handwashing curriculum to educate students at low-resource schools in India to promote behavior change among these students and their teachers. The purpose of this study is to measure how effective this curriculum is in improving handwashing outcomes.

Methods

From October 2019 through March 2020, we ran a cluster-ran

SUBMITTER: Levine D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12777146 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature