The Need for Personal & Social Hygiene

In our society, the likes of us are blessed with privileged lives and means for leading a comfortable life. We consider maintaining personal and social hygiene as a daily routine and carry it out without much thought. Out of all of the things we all are grateful for, would you ever consider being able to take a shower as a privilege? Usually, kids hate having showers. It is practically a chore! But that, is in fact, a privilege that unfortunately a large proportion of the population cannot relate to. While you and I can nag about having to wash our hands before dinner, 2.4 billion people cannot. 1 in 3 people on this planet do not have the privilege to wash their hands because they live in areas with poor access to clean water. Poor sanitation is an unfortunate consequence of low income that impacts the physical and mental health of the underprivileged. Now, with COVID-19 wreaking havoc across the world, poor social and physical hygiene has even graver consequences. The worst part about this all is that the issue of hygiene is easy to solve. The real question is: why haven’t we solved it yet?

Like every problem that exists in this world, whether it is political, social or economic, the problem with access to hygiene exists due to a misallocation of resources. We, the privileged, could afford to stockpile toilet roll, disinfectant, soap, sanitisers and cleaning products at the start of the pandemic. The ability to hoard is elitist, and it is a major proponent that prevents people from lower socio-economic backgrounds from getting equal access to hygiene products. That is, at least for those who could afford to allocate a portion of their income to hygiene products. The underprivileged who already have a low income were the ones who suffered the most as they lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic during the first lockdown period. These people were the ones who never had the money to buy soap and cleaning products before the pandemic and now were exposed to a disease they were ill-equipped for. The underprivileged rarely have enough money to keep themselves fed or keep a stable roof over their heads. Hygiene remains a concern too far out of their reach. So why is it that while we all faced a disease we have never dealt with before, it was underprivileged who suffered the most brunt of it?

When we all grumbled and groaned about being stuck at home during the lockdown, hundreds of thousands of migrant labourers in India were suddenly displaced with no income and no way to get back home to their villages. Most slums are informally made, with loose roofs, no running water and no garbage collection systems. This creates an environment that is more prone to an uncontrolled spread of epidemics and viruses, with germs spreading through unsanitary water and undisposed waste. This puts underprivileged people at a further disadvantage, making it impossible for them to stay safe in situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It is this lack of importance to personal hygiene amongst the poor that leads to multiple problems like poor health, diseases, shortened lifespan and often accompanies certain mental or emotional disorders, including severe depression and psychotic disorders. The situation may be different in other parts of the continent and the world. Several challenges and barriers to good hygiene exist in lower-income countries. The greatest of these challenges is the lack of clean water. Hundreds of millions of people do not have access to improved sources of drinking water worldwide, there are 1.6 million deaths per year attributed to diseases spread through unsafe water, poor sanitation, and lack of hygiene.

However, even under circumstances where clean water is not available, evidence indicates that hygiene practices (for example, washing hands) using unsafe water are beneficial to reducing the spread of disease and are better than not washing at all. When access to safe water is poor, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends using unsafe water in the same manner as safe water for hygiene practices, to clean hands before eating, after using the toilet, and at other times.

In addition to water, another hygiene challenge in lower-income countries is access to soap. Even when soap is available, it is typically used for laundry and bathing instead of for handwashing. Several international programs focus on teaching the importance of using soap to wash hands.

Governments worldwide regularly take actions to help the poor improve their levels of personal hygiene. Several programs and initiatives are run by government agencies, charitable institutes and non-government organizations in most countries.

But, most often these programs are not able to reach everyone below the line of poverty. This is where all of us who have been blessed with a good life and means to indulge in luxuries, should come forward and help those who are not so blessed. If we help the underprivileged around us and provide them with the means to maintain personal hygiene, then it could help the society in a long run. If we all take actions such as these we can ensure personal and social hygiene equality for everyone