Branches
Hygiene and Sanitation
Also Known As Hygiene
Population Health Field
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The history and practice of clean water, waste disposal and personal cleanliness as disease prevention, among the oldest and most consequential branches of public health practice, credited with mortality reductions that predate germ theory's own confirmation.
Facts
Central QuestionHow does keeping water, waste and the human body clean prevent disease, and what infrastructure does that cleanliness require at population scale. 1 Key DebateCommunity-Led Total Sanitation, the field's own leading approach to ending open defecation without hardware subsidies, was originally built to work by provoking shame and disgust about open defecation, and even as its own practitioners have shifted the emphasis toward self-respect and pride, documented bad-practice cases including fines, public taunting, the posting of humiliating pictures and even violence have drawn direct criticism from human rights figures such as former United Nations Special Rapporteur Catarina de Albuquerque, leaving the field with a live dispute over whether a genuinely participatory method can be separated from the coercion it was built to avoid. 2 Key DebateHistorians of public health debate how much of the nineteenth century mortality decline in industrializing cities should be credited to sanitation reform specifically, as against rising living standards more broadly, a debate carried honestly rather than settled by this atlas. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene is named among the environmental conditions good health depends on.
Includes
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.HygieneQuote, Hygiene
hygiene, the science of preserving health.
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.Includes: Chadwick Sanitary ReportView the Source 1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.Includes: Water Chlorination, Water purification, water treatmentView the Source 1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.Includes: Pasteurization, PasteurizationView the Source 1. Encyclopedia Britannica
2. Wikipedia: Community-led Total Sanitation
WikipediaAims and rationale, and Human rights sectionsQuote, Aims and rationale, and Human rights sections
There have been cases of fines (monetary and non-monetary), withholding of entitlements, public taunting, posting of humiliating pictures, and even violence.
2. Wikipedia: Community-led Total Sanitation
United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Official Site
US Centers for Disease Control and PreventionIncludes: Hand HygieneView the Source World Health Organization Official Site
World Health OrganizationAssociated With: Environmental Health, Environmental health topicQuote, Associated With: Environmental Health, Environmental health topic
Good health depends on clean air, a stable climate, a preserved natural environment, as well as access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene.
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