What is hygiene behavioural change?

Updated - Monday 28 November 2005

What is hygiene behavioural change? Which factors induce people to change their behaviour?

For individuals or groups to make a sustained change to their hygiene behaviour, they need to go through several steps:

Recognizing or acknowledging that a particular behaviour (e.g. leaving children's stools exposed in the living environment) is wrong, or risky, or anti-social and wanting (or accepting peer pressure) to change it.
Discovering alternative, more suitable, behaviour (putting the stools in a latrine) that is practical and convenient.
Trying out the new behaviour and assessing the pros (cleanliness, dignity, esteem, improved health) and cons (extra effort, disruption to daily routine, distance to latrine).
Finding an overall positive benefit from adopting the new behaviour.

Before making the actual change, different considerations (own beliefs and values, developed attitude, influence of others, enabling factors) play a role.

When people change, as individuals or through group action, specific factors motivate them to do so. In the table below, four key benefits are listed which have been found to strongly influence hygiene behaviour change.

They are:

facilitation, or making good behaviour easier;
understanding, in one's own mode of thinking, that the change is better for oneself and for one's family;
influence and support from others, when a new practice is adopted; and
autonomy, or the means and control to carry out the practice.

Factors inducing people to change their hygiene behaviour
Facilitation	· Water sources are closer, supply is reliable and predictable, collection easier and safer. · New facilities to solve excreta disposal problems e.g lack of privacy, lack of safety, bad smells, flies, workloads of children are solved. · New facilities/services to eliminate solid waste and waste water nuisance from dirt, mud, rats and bad smells are reduced.
Understanding	· People conclude that within their own hygiene perceptions certain conditions or practices are unhealthy or undesirable and should be changed. · People perceive economic implications of unhygienic conditions.
Influence	· People gain prestige from their new behaviour. · Others support the new behaviour/disapprove of different behaviour. · The group/community commits itself to the behaviour. · People agree on specific punishments or rewards.
Autonomy	· Means (time, energy, finances, etc.) for the new practice are available. · The process provides valued skills and resources. · The users are free to use their skills and resources.