Water cost and availability: Key determinants of family hygiene in a Peruvian shantytown.

Investigated whether poor hygiene practices of 53 families in 2 Peruvian shantytowns are due to difficulty in getting enough water and/or to ignorance of sanitary principles. Direct observation was used to determine the amount of water and soap used for personal and domestic activities and to determine the frequency with which direct fecal contamination of hands was interrupted by washing. Women were also surveyed concerning their knowledge of hygiene to determine whether noncompliance was owing to ignorance. 300 fecal contamination events were registered, of which only 38 were interrupted by hand washing within 15 min. The mean 12-hr per capita amount of water and soap used by the families was low. More than 80% of the water stored by these families had fecal coliforms. However, the level of knowledge concerning the importance of hand washing and other hygienic practices was high.