: Washing hands after going to the washroom to prevent epidemy There is widespread agreement that one should wash its hands after going to the washroom. However, a large fraction of the population does not wash their hands.

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Hands play a major role especially in the transmission of blood-borne, fecal, and respiratory tract viruses.

Hand washing after use of bathroom aims at preventing the transmission of pathogens, which rely on faecal-oral transmission, such as rotavirus, noroviruses, enteroviruses in some cases hepatitis A virus (1). It prevents those pathogens from reaching the kitchen for example where it could lead to subsequent ingestion.

Recently a systematic review (2) identified a total of 2881 unique publications addressing this question.

Interestingly, this study found a varying prevalence of hand-washing after contact with extcreta:

We estimate that 19% of people worldwide wash their hands with soap
after contact with excreta. The regional mean prevalence of
handwashing with soap ranges between 13% and 17% in low- and
middle-income regions, and between 42% and 49% in high-income regions

However, the authors reported a 40% reduction in the risk of diarrhoea from the promotion of handwashing with soap (RR 0.60, 95% CI 0.53–0.68) suggesting that hand-washing impact on faecal oral transmission and reduces risk of diarrhoea.

Sources:

Kampf G, Kramer A. Epidemiologic Background of Hand Hygiene and Evaluation of the Most Important Agents for Scrubs and Rubs. Clinical Microbiology Reviews. 2004;17(4):863-893.
Freeman et al. Systematic review: Hygiene and health: systematic review of handwashing practices worldwide and update of health effects. Tropical Medicine and international health. Volume 19, Issue 8. August 2014. Pages 906–916