H1N1 infection: Handwashing in public restrooms.

The article looks at public hygiene. Acting as a confederate, a student was dressed as a janitor/maintenance person in the most used rest room of a very large suburban retail mall. His job was to watch which males wash their hands after using the rest room. The main hypothesis was to see if males wash their hands after going to the bathroom when another civilian male or male shopper was also using the bathroom. We thought that the gray uniformed custodian would not impact behavior as much as a shopper. The overall findings from data taken at various times of the day are that males do not wash their hands in abundance. About 60% made no effort to clean their hands with soap and water. This literature review suggest that males are likely not to wash their hands and are not stimulated to wash their hands after going to the bathroom. This may be an important indicator of social infectious behavior and especially the spread of H1N1.