Beyond tippy-taps: the role of enabling products in scaling up and sustaining handwashing

Handwashing with soap has been shown to reduce the incidence of diarrhea by almost one half and acute respiratory infections by roughly one third. Yet the rates of handwashing with soap remain low, as little as 5% to 15% at important times. Factors that influence individuals’ opportunity to handwash have often been overlooked in hygiene promotion initiatives, with much of the focus having been on motivation.

This article summarizes findings from the Water and Sanitation’s Global Scaling Up Handwashing Project and other research that suggest that convenient access to water and soap when and where needed and having a designated place for HWWS are also important determinant for handwashing. Enabling products such as handwashing stations provide such a designated place in addition to an environmental cue to action and a stable context for handwashing, factors that literature highlight as critical for habits to form and be maintained.

WSP is currently conducting a landscape of enabling products and many identified to date are tippy-taps. However, the learning from a design consultancy for a handwashing station for rural Vietnamese households is that appearances may matter and that designing features that take into account user preferences and usual practices is essential. Findings results from planned case studies on selected enabling products and the outcomes from the Scaling Up Handwashing Project in the next 12-18 months will reveal whether mass-produced and commercially distributed products have the potential to scale up and sustain handwashing.

[Paper written for the South Asia Hygiene practioners’ workshop, 1 – 4 February 2010, Dhaka, Bangladesh]