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Hygiene is a set of practices performed to preserve health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of ." Personal hygiene refers to maintaining the body's cleanliness. Hygiene activities can be grouped into the following: home and everyday hygiene, personal hygiene, medical hygiene, sleep hygiene, and Food safety. Home and every day hygiene includes hand washing, respiratory hygiene, food hygiene at home, hygiene in the kitchen, hygiene in the bathroom, laundry hygiene, and medical hygiene at home. And also environmental hygiene in the society to prevent all kinds of bacterias from penetrating into our homes.
Many people equate hygiene with "cleanliness", but hygiene is a broad term. It includes such personal habit choices as how frequently to take a shower or bath, wash hands, trim fingernails, and wash clothes. It also includes attention to keeping surfaces in the home and workplace clean, including bathroom facilities. Adherence to regular hygiene practices is often regarded as a socially responsible and respectable behavior, while neglecting proper hygiene can be perceived as unclean or unsanitary, and may be considered socially unacceptable or disrespectful, while also posing a risk to public health.
Hygiene practices vary from one culture to another. (2025). 9789241597906, World Health Organization. ISBN 9789241597906
In the manufacturing of food, (2025). 9780857098634, Woodhead. ISBN 9780857098634 pharmaceuticals, (2025). 9780429074943, CRC Press. ISBN 9780429074943 cosmetics, (2025). 9780429524431, CRC Press. ISBN 9780429524431 and other products, good hygiene is a critical component of quality assurance.
The terms cleanliness and hygiene are often used interchangeably, which can cause confusion. In general, hygiene refers to practices that prevent spread of disease-causing organisms. Cleaning processes (e.g., Hand washing) remove infectious microbes as well as dirt and soil, and are thus often the means to achieve hygiene.
Other uses of the term are as follows: body hygiene, Personal care, sleep hygiene, mental hygiene, Oral hygiene, and occupational hygiene, used in connection with public health.
At present, these components of hygiene tend to be regarded as separate issues, although based on the same underlying microbiological principles. Preventing the spread of diseases means breaking the chain of infection transmission so that infection cannot spread. "Targeted hygiene" is based on identifying the routes of pathogen spread in the home and introducing hygiene practices at critical times to break the chain of infection. It uses a risk-based approach based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP).
The main sources of infection in the home are people (who are carriers or are infected), foods (particularly raw foods), water, pets, and domestic animals. Sites that accumulate stagnant water – such as sinks, , waste pipes, cleaning tools, and face cloths – readily support microbial growth and can become secondary reservoirs of infection, though species are mostly those that threaten "at risk" groups. Pathogens (such as potentially infectious bacteria and viruses – colloquially called "germs") are constantly shed via mucous membranes, feces, vomit, skin scales, and other means. When circumstances combine, people are exposed, either directly or via food or water, and can develop an infection.
The main "highways" for the spread of pathogens in the home are the hands, hand and food contact surfaces, and cleaning cloths and utensils (e.g. fecal–oral route of transmission). Pathogens can also be spread via clothing and household linens, such as towels. Utilities such as toilets and wash basins were invented to deal safely with human waste but still have risks associated with them. Safe disposal of human waste is a fundamental need; poor sanitation is a primary cause of diarrhea disease in low-income communities. Respiratory viruses and fungal spores spread via the air.
Good home hygiene means engaging in hygiene practices at critical points to break the chain of infection. Because the "infectious dose" for some pathogens can be very small (10–100 viable units or even less for some viruses), and infection can result from direct transfer of pathogens from surfaces via hands or food to the mouth, nasal mucous, or the eye, "hygienic cleaning" procedures should be adopted to eliminate pathogens from critical surfaces.
Microbiological and epidemiological data indicates that clothing and household linens are a risk factor for infection transmission in home and everyday life settings as well as institutional settings. The lack of quantitative data linking contaminated clothing to infection in the domestic setting makes it difficult to assess the extent of this risk. This also indicates that risks from clothing and household linens are somewhat less than those associated with hands, hand contact and food contact surfaces, and cleaning cloths, but even so these risks need to be managed through effective laundering practices. In the home, this should be carried out as part of a multibarrier approach to hygiene which includes hand, food, respiratory, and other hygiene practices.
Infectious disease risks from contaminated clothing can increase significantly under certain conditions - for example, in healthcare situations in hospitals, care homes, and the domestic setting where someone has diarrhoea, vomiting, or a skin or wound infection. The risk increases in circumstances where someone has reduced immunity to infection.
Hygiene measures, including laundry hygiene, are an important part of reducing spread of antibiotic-resistant strains of infectious organisms. In the community, otherwise-healthy people can become persistent skin carriers of MRSA, or faecal carriers of enterobacteria strains which can carry multi-antibiotic resistance factors (e.g. NDM-1 or ESBL-producing strains). The risks are not apparent until, for example, they are admitted to hospital, when they can become "self infected" with their own resistant organisms following a surgical procedure. As persistent nasal, skin, or bowel carriage in the healthy population spreads "silently" across the world, the risks from resistant strains in both hospitals and the community increases. In particular the data indicates that clothing and household linens are a risk factor for spread of S. aureus (including MRSA and PVL-producing MRSA strains), and that effectiveness of laundry processes may be an important factor in defining the rate of community spread of these strains. Experience in the United States suggests that these strains are transmissible within families and in community settings such as prisons, schools, and sport teams. Skin-to-skin contact (including unabraded skin) and indirect contact with contaminated objects such as towels, sheets, and sports equipment seem to represent the mode of transmission.
During laundering, temperature and detergent work to reduce microbial contamination levels on fabrics. Soil and microbes from fabrics are severed and suspended in the wash water. These are then "washed away" during the rinse and spin cycles. In addition to physical removal, micro-organisms can be killed by thermal inactivation which increases as the temperature is increased. Chemical inactivation of microbes by the surfactants and activated oxygen-based bleach used in detergents contributes to the hygiene effectiveness of laundering. Adding hypochlorite bleach in the washing process achieves inactivation of microbes. A number of other factors can contribute including drying and ironing.
Drying laundry on a line in direct sunlight is known to reduce pathogens.
In 2013, the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene reviewed 30 studies of the hygiene effectiveness of laundering at temperatures ranging from room temperature to , under varying conditions. A key finding was the lack of standardization and control within studies, and the variability in test conditions between studies such as wash cycle time, number of rinses, and other factors. The consequent variability in the data (i.e., the reduction in contamination on fabrics) in turn makes it extremely difficult to propose guidelines for laundering with any confidence. As a result, there is significant variability in the recommendations for hygienic laundering given by different agencies.
may be applied to cuts, wounds, and abrasions of the skin to prevent the entry of harmful bacteria that can cause sepsis. Day-to-day hygiene practices, other than special medical hygiene procedures, are no different for those at increased risk of infection than for other family members. The difference is that, if hygiene practices are not correctly carried out, the risk of infection is much greater.
An antibacterial product acts against bacteria in some unspecified way. Some products labelled "antibacterial" kill bacteria while others may contain a concentration of active ingredient that only prevents them from multiplying. It is, therefore, important to check whether the product label states that it "kills bacteria". An antibacterial is not necessarily anti-fungal or anti-viral unless this is stated on the label.
The term disinfection has been used to define substances that both clean and disinfect. More recently this term has been applied to alcohol-based products that disinfect the hands (hand sanitizer). Alcohol hand sanitizers however are not considered to be effective on soiled hands.
The term biocide is a broad term for a substance that kills, inactivates or otherwise controls living organisms. It includes antiseptics and disinfectants, which combat micro-organisms, and pesticides.
Practices that are generally considered proper hygiene include showering or bathing regularly, Hand washing regularly and especially before handling food, face washing, washing scalp hair, keeping hair short or removing hair, wearing clean clothing, brushing teeth, and trimming fingernails and toenails. Some practices are sex-specific, such as by a woman during menstruation.
hold body hygiene and toiletry supplies.
Anal hygiene is the practice that a person performs on their anal area after defecation. The anus and buttocks may be either washed with liquids or wiped with toilet paper, or by adding gel wipe to toilet tissue as an alternative to wet wipes or other solid materials in order to remove remnants of Human feces.
People tend to develop a routine for attending to their personal hygiene needs. Other personal hygienic practices include covering one's mouth when coughing, disposal of soiled tissues appropriately, making sure toilets are clean, and making sure food handling areas are clean, besides other practices. Some cultures do not kiss or shake hands in order to reduce transmission of bacteria by contact.
Personal grooming extends personal hygiene as it pertains to the maintenance of a good personal and public appearance, which need not necessarily be hygienic. It may involve, for example, using deodorants or perfume, shaving, or combing.
Personal care hygiene practices include:
Although there is substantial evidence that some microbial exposures in early childhood can in some way protect against allergies, there is no evidence that humans need exposure to harmful microbes (infection) or that it is necessary to develop a clinical infection. Nor is there evidence that hygiene measures such as hand washing, food hygiene, etc., are linked to increased susceptibility to atopy. If this is the case, there is no conflict between the goals of preventing infection and minimizing allergies. A consensus is now developing among experts that the answer lies in more fundamental changes in lifestyles that have led to decreased exposure to certain microbial or other species, such as helminths, that are important for development of immuno-regulatory mechanisms. There is still much uncertainty as to which lifestyle factors are involved.
Medical hygiene practices include:
Most of these practices were developed in the 19th century and were well-established by the mid-20th century. Some procedures (such as disposal of medical waste) were refined in response to late-20th century disease outbreaks, notably AIDS and Ebola.
About two million people die every year due to diarrheal diseases; most of them are children less than five years of age. The most affected are people in developing countries who live in extreme conditions of poverty, normally peri-urban dwellers or rural inhabitants. Providing access to sufficient quantities of safe water and facilities for a sanitary disposal of excreta, and introducing sound hygiene behaviors are important in order to reduce the burden of disease.
Research shows that, if widely practiced, hand washing with soap could reduce diarrhea by almost fifty percent and respiratory infections by nearly twenty-five percent Hand washing with soap also reduces the incidence of skin diseases, and eye infections like trachoma and intestinal worms, especially ascariasis and trichuriasis. Other hygiene practices, such as safe disposal of waste, surface hygiene, and care of domestic animals, are important in low income communities to break the chain of infection transmission.
Cleaning of and hand wash facilities is important to prevent odors and make them socially acceptable. Social acceptance is an important part of encouraging people to use toilets and wash their hands, in situations where open defecation is still seen as a possible alternative, e.g. in rural areas of some developing countries.
Methods for treatment of drinking water at the household level include:
Ancient bath facilities have been found in ancient Chinese cities, such as Dongzhouyang archaeological site in Henan Province. Bathrooms were called (), and bathtubs were made of bronze or timber. Bath beans – a powdery soap mixture of ground beans, cloves, eaglewood, flowers, and even powdered jade – were recorded in the Han Dynasty. Bath beans were considered luxury toiletries, while common people simply used powdered beans without spices mixed in. Luxurious bathhouses built around hot springs were recorded in Tang dynasty. While royal bathhouses and bathrooms were common among ancient Chinese nobles and commoners, public bathhouses were a relatively late development. In the Song dynasty (), public bathhouses became popular and people could find them readily. Bathing became an essential part of social life and recreation. Bathhouses often provided massage, nail cutting service, rubdown service, ear picking, food, and beverages. Marco Polo, who traveled to China during the Yuan dynasty, noted Chinese bathhouses were using coal to heat the bathhouse, which he had never seen before in Europe. (1999). 9780521580007, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521580007 Coal was so plentiful that Chinese people of every social class had bathrooms in their houses, and people took showers every day in the winter for enjoyment. The travels of Marco Polo the Venetian. 1914. pp.214-215.
A typical Ming dynasty bathhouse had slabbed floors and brick domed ceilings. A huge boiler would be installed in the back of the house, connected with the bathing pool through a tunnel. Water could be pumped into the pool by Water wheel attended by the staff.
In the Heian period (), houses of prominent families, such as the families of court nobles or samurai, had baths. The bath had lost its religious significance and instead became leisure. became (to bathe in a shallow wooden tub). In the 17th century, the first European visitors to Japan recorded the habit of daily baths in mixed sex groups.
Ayurveda is a system of medicine developed in ancient times that is still practiced in India, mostly combined with conventional Western medicine. Contemporary Ayurveda stresses a sattvic diet and good digestion and excretion. Hygiene measures include oil pulling, and tongue scraping. Detoxification also plays an important role.
Bathing was not restricted to the elite, but was practiced by all people; the chronicler Tomás López Medel wrote after a journey to Central America that " and the custom of washing oneself is so quotidian common amongst the Indians, both of cold and hot lands, as is eating, and this is done in fountains and rivers and other water to which they have access, without anything other than pure water..."
The Mesoamerican bath, known as temazcal in Spanish language, from the Nahuatl word temazcalli, a compound of temaz ("steam") and calli ("house"), consists of a room, often in the form of a small dome, with an exterior firebox known as texictle () that heats a small portion of the room's wall made of volcanic rocks; after this wall has been heated, water is poured on it to produce steam, an action known as tlasas. As the steam accumulates in the upper part of the room a person in charge uses a bough to direct the steam to the bathers who are lying on the ground, with which he later gives them a massage, then the bathers scrub themselves with a small flat river stone and finally the person in charge introduces buckets with water along with soap and grass used to rinse. This bath had also ritual importance, and was tied to the goddess Toci; it is also therapeutic when medicinal herbs are used in the water for the tlasas. It is still used in Mexico.
Christianity has always placed a strong emphasis on hygiene. Despite rejecting mixed bathing, early Christian clergy encouraged believers to bath, which contributed to hygiene and good health according to the Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian. The Church built public bathing facilities that were separated by sex near monasteries and pilgrimage sites.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, bathing was essential to the Western European upper class: the Cluniac monasteries (popular centers for resorting and retiring) were always equipped with bathhouses. These baths were also used ritually when the monks took full immersion baths at the two Christian festivals of renewal. The rules of the Augustinians and Benedictines contained references to ritual purification, and, inspired by Benedict of Nursia, encouraged the practice of therapeutic bathing. Benedictine monks also played a role in the development and promotion of .
On the other hand, bathing also sparked erotic phantasies, played upon by the writers of romances intended for the upper class; in the tale of Melusine the bath was a crucial element of the plot.
Cities regulated public bathing – the 26 public baths of Paris in the late 13th century were strictly overseen by the civil authorities and guild laws banned prostitutes from bathhouse admission.
In 14th century Tuscany, newlywed couples commonly took a bath together and we find an illustration of this custom in a fresco in the town hall of San Gimignano.Fresco of illustrated in As evident in Hans Folz' Bath Booklet (a late 15th century guide on European baths) and various artistic depictions such as Albrecht Dürer's Women's Bath , public bathing continued to be a popular past time in the Renaissance. In Britain, the rise of Protestantism also played a prominent role in the development of spa culture.
Modern sanitation was not widely adopted until the 19th and 20th centuries. According to medieval historian Lynn Thorndike, people in Middle Ages probably bathed more than people did in the 19th century. Some time after Louis Pasteur's experiments proved the germ theory of disease and Joseph Lister and others put this into practice in sanitation, hygienic practices came to be regarded as synonymous with health, as they are in modern times.
The importance of hand washing for human healthparticularly for people in vulnerable circumstances like mothers who had just given birth or wounded soldiers in hospitalswas first recognized in the mid 19th century by two pioneers of hand hygiene: the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis who worked in Vienna, Austria, and Florence Nightingale, the English "founder of modern nursing". At that time most people still believed that infections were caused by foul odors called miasma theory.
In the Abbasid Caliphate (8th–13th centuries), its capital city of Baghdad (Iraq) had 65,000 baths, along with a sewer system. Cities and towns of the medieval Islamic world had water supply systems powered by hydraulic technology that supplied drinking water along with much greater quantities of water for ritual washing, mainly in mosques and Turkish bath (baths). Bathing establishments in various cities were rated by Arabic writers in . Medieval Islamic cities such as Baghdad, Córdoba (Islamic Spain), Fez (Morocco), and Fustat (Egypt) also had sophisticated waste disposal and with interconnected networks of sewers. The city of Fustat also had multi-storey tenement buildings (with up to six floors) with , which were connected to a water supply system, and on each floor carrying waste to underground channels.
A basic form of Infection theory dates back to the Persian medicine in the medieval, where it was proposed by Persian physician Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna) in The Canon of Medicine (1025), the most authoritative medical textbook of the Middle Ages. He mentioned that people can transmit disease to others by breath, noted contagion with tuberculosis, and discussed the transmission of disease through water and dirt. The concept of invisible contagion was eventually widely accepted by Islamic scholars. In the Ayyubid Sultanate, they referred to them as ("impure substances"). The scholar Ibn al-Haj al-Abdari (), while discussing Islamic diet and hygiene, gave advice and warnings about how contagion can contaminate water, food, and garments, and could spread through the water supply.
In the 9th century, Ziryab invented a type of deodorant. He also promoted morning and evening baths, and emphasized the maintenance of personal hygiene. Ziryab is thought to have invented a type of toothpaste, which he popularized throughout Al-Andalus. The exact ingredients of this toothpaste are not known, but it was reported to have been both "functional and pleasant to taste."
In Southern Africa, the Zulu people conducted methods of sanitation by using water stored in pottery at Ulundi. The Himba people of Namibia and Angola also utilized mixtures of smoke and Otjize to treat skin diseases in regions where water is scarce.
By the 15th century, the manufacture of soap in Christendom had become virtually industrialized, with sources in Antwerp, Castile, Marseille, Naples, and Venice. In the 17th century the Spanish Catholicism manufacturers purchased the monopoly on Castile soap from the cash-strapped Carolinian government. Industrially-manufactured bar soaps became available in the late 18th century, as advertising campaigns in Europe and America promoted popular awareness of the relationship between cleanliness and health.
A major contribution of the Christian missionaries in Africa, China, Guatemala, India, Indonesia,J. Gelman Taylor (2025). 9789004253612, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. ISBN 9789004253612 Korea, and other places was better health care through hygiene and introducing and distributing soap, and "cleanliness and hygiene became an important marker of being identified as a Christian".
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