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Hand washing or hand hygiene is the act of cleaning one's hands with or without the use of water or another liquid, or with the use of soap for the purpose of removing soil, dirt, and/or microorganisms. The spelling "handwashing" in one word is also common. Medical hand hygiene pertains to the hygiene practices related to the administration of medicine and medical care that prevents or minimizes disease and the spreading of disease. The main medical purpose of washing hands is to cleanse the hands of pathogens (including bacteria or viruses) and chemicals which can cause personal harm or disease. This is especially important for people who handle food or work in the medical field, but it is also an important practice for the general public. People can become infected with respiratory illnesses such as influenza or the common cold, for example, if they do not wash their hands before touching their eyes, nose, or mouth. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated: "It is well documented that one of the most important measures for preventing the spread of pathogens is effective hand washing." As a general rule, hand washing protects people poorly or not at all from droplet- and airborne diseases, such as measles, chickenpox, influenza, and tuberculosis. It protects best against diseases transmitted through fecal-oral routes (such as many forms of gastroenteritis) and direct physical contact (such as impetigo). Symbolic hand washing, using water only to wash hands, is a part of ritual hand washing featured in many religions, including Bahá'í Faith, Hinduism, and tevilah and netilat yadayim in Judaism. Similar to these are the practices of Lavabo in Christianity, Wudu in Islam and Misogi in Shintō. ==Public health == Hand washing has the following health benefits: * helps minimize the spread of influenza * diarrhea prevention * avoiding respiratory infections * a preventive measure for infant deaths at their home birth deliveries * improved hand washing practices have been shown to lead to small improvements in the length growth in children under five years of age In developing countries, childhood mortality rates related to respiratory and diarrheal diseases can be reduced by introducing simple behavioral changes, such as hand washing with soap. This simple action can reduce the rate of mortality from these diseases by almost 50 per cent. Hand washing with soap is the single most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrhea and acute respiratory infections (ARI), as automatic behavior performed in homes, schools, and communities worldwide. Pneumonia, a major ARI, is the number one cause of mortality among children under five years old, taking the life of an estimated 1.8 million children per year. Diarrhea and pneumonia together account for almost 3.5 million child deaths annually.〔(The State of the World’s Children 2008. Child Survival. UNICEF )〕 According to UNICEF, turning hand washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit can save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter. Hand washing is usually integrated together with other sanitation interventions as part of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programmes. A possible small detrimental effect of hand washing is that frequent hand washing can lead to skin damage due to drying of the skin. Excessive hand washing is commonly seen as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hand washing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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