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Wednesday, June 02, 2004"Giving people soap and hand washing instructions reduced the incidence of diarrhea by more than 50 per cent among children in Pakistan, the team reported in Wednesday's global health-themed issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Actually, the study's results aren't quite as impressive as the news report makes it sound. Among the households who were nagged about washing their hands, there were 2 episodes of diarrhea per 100 "person-weeks" (That would be 100 people observed over a week's time or one person observed for a hundred weeks, or any variation thereof.) Among the non-nagged households, there were 4 episodes of diarrhea per person-week. The difference is even less dramatic when viewed graphically, there being a substantial over-lap between the washed and unwashed when it comes to diarrhea. Of course, in Pakistan, there are other issues besides hand-washing to consider. Issues like clean drinking water. Still, there is a slight improvement in diarrhea when hands are washed regularly, and since soap is relatively inexpensive, it wouldn't be a bad idea to promote it more. Too often, the simple interventions get overlooked in favor of the high-tech and expensive, like the importance of clean needles in fighting HIV in Africa. posted by Sydney on 6/02/2004 08:17:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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