Hand washing is your number one defense against illness.

Alcohol-based hand cleansers are also effective.

Wash your hands the right way

Word Match (USDA)

Wash your hands coloring page (USDA)

Use soap and warm water (USDA)

Take the germ bug quiz! (Tacoma-Pierce County Health Dept.)

Hand washing (CDC)

Foodborne Illness (USDA)

Childcare facility poster (USDA)

Download the W.A.S.H. Up Westchester Kit

View pictures of the Hand Washing Event

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Why?  
Hand washing is considered the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection.  Ensuring that both educators and children know the correct way to wash their hands will help control the spread of upper respiratory infections like colds, coughs, or flu, and intestinal infections, including those that cause diarrhea.

Proper hand washing is something we should have learned by the time we get through kindergarten.  It is a simple, but important technique for everyone to learn and use.  It is the most cost-effective way to decrease the spread of illness.  Although schools and childcare facilities are excellent places for learning and practicing hand washing, it is becoming a lost behavior.

The quantity and variety of germs that we carry on our hands everyday is astounding.  When we forget to wash our hands, or don't wash our hands correctly, we can spread these germs to other people.  Hand washing, when done correctly, can help us avoid spreading and receiving germs.  Remembering to wash your hands correctly and frequently is the first step toward staying healthy.

How?
Use the links to the left to join in the effort to stop the spread of germs.

When?
before you touch anything used to prepare food, and
     before you touch food that will not be cooked;
after you work with raw meat, fish and poultry;
after you handle trash and take out garbage;
after using the bathroom or changing a diaper.