Women clean up in latest lavatory comparison study
Published 10/4/05
Okay, tell me if this has ever happened to you: You’re in a public restroom and behind closed doors but, let’s say, in no position to monitor the activities of other patrons of the facilities. You hear someone enter, complete their, uh, transaction, and then exit without apparently using the faucet.
Gag!!
But what you heard could well have happened, says the American Society of Microbiology, which has been conducting a study concerning America’s hygiene habits.
During August, according to the Associated Press, the ASM visited public restrooms in assorted American cities and observed how many people washed their hands before leaving. Well, they didn’t go in with pencils behind their ears and clipboards in their hands. They went incognito and counted discreetly. This year’s restroom research was conducted in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and San Francisco.
But the researchers didn’t go to just any restrooms. They hit the facilities of famous American attractions—Atlanta’s Turner Field, the Shedd Aquarium and Museum of Science and Industry in the Windy City, Grand Central Station and Penn Station in the Big Apple, and San Francisco’s Ferry Terminal Farmers Market. Informants monitored the activities of more than 6,300 bathroom users. Interesting work if you can get it.
And here’s the punch line of the story, one which women have been waiting for. The study showed that, in city after city, women washed up 90 percent of the time while only 75 percent of the anthropoids—that is, creatures resembling men—soaped and rinsed.
Of course, studies tend to make sweeping generalizations and results will vary from city to city. For example, 88 percent of the visitors to San Francisco and Chicago washrooms reportedly washed their hands before leaving. On the other hand, and probably not one that you’d want to touch, more than 25 percent of baseball fans attending an Atlanta Braves game at Turner Field did not lather and rinse. While 84 percent of women did, the average dropped when only 63 percent of men washed. Of course, in defense of men, you can’t linger in the lavatory when the pennant chase is getting interesting, the bases are loaded and Chipper Jones is coming to the plate.
Public hygiene habits between men and women were also pronounced in NYC’s Penn Station where 92 percent of women freshened up but only 64 percent of male New Yorkers did so.
So, what can we learn from the survey besides the fact that women have cleaner “genes” than men or that we shouldn’t shake hands with guys from New York and Atlanta?
October is when we throw out the first germ to officially open the American influenza season. Let’s come clean here: Each year between five and 20 percent of the nation’s population is infected with the flu, more than 200,000 are hospitalized and nearly 36,000 die of flu complications, so says the Centers for Disease Control. (Because the CDC is located in Atlanta, they should be able to do something about those bacteria-laden Braves fans.) And yet, according to the ASM, cold and influenza viruses are spread as often, if not more, by unclean hands than through the sneezing of airborne respiratory droplets onto innocent American victims.
In other words, we can stay healthy this fall by spending just a few seconds at the spigot and the dispenser.
In conjunction with the restroom study, the ASM also conducted a national telephone survey. Answering several hygiene related questions, 23 percent of respondents admitted that they didn’t wash before handling food, 27 percent said they did not scrub after changing a diaper, 58 percent reported not washing after petting a pet, and 79 percent pleaded guilty to not rinsing after handling money. (Since it’s been proven that most of the cash we use is contaminated with bacteria, our money may be in need of an occasional laundering.)
Asked if they washed up after using public powder rooms, 97 percent of women and 96 percent of men surveyed answered “yes.” What did this project prove? That not only do we have illness-causing cooties on our hands, but we’re big fat liars, too.
I’m no germa-phobe but this fall I can guarantee you I’ll be holding the hands of more women than men.
Okay, tell me if this has ever happened to you: You’re in a public restroom and behind closed doors but, let’s say, in no position to monitor the activities of other patrons of the facilities. You hear someone enter, complete their, uh, transaction, and then exit without apparently using the faucet.
Gag!!
But what you heard could well have happened, says the American Society of Microbiology, which has been conducting a study concerning America’s hygiene habits.
During August, according to the Associated Press, the ASM visited public restrooms in assorted American cities and observed how many people washed their hands before leaving. Well, they didn’t go in with pencils behind their ears and clipboards in their hands. They went incognito and counted discreetly. This year’s restroom research was conducted in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and San Francisco.
But the researchers didn’t go to just any restrooms. They hit the facilities of famous American attractions—Atlanta’s Turner Field, the Shedd Aquarium and Museum of Science and Industry in the Windy City, Grand Central Station and Penn Station in the Big Apple, and San Francisco’s Ferry Terminal Farmers Market. Informants monitored the activities of more than 6,300 bathroom users. Interesting work if you can get it.
And here’s the punch line of the story, one which women have been waiting for. The study showed that, in city after city, women washed up 90 percent of the time while only 75 percent of the anthropoids—that is, creatures resembling men—soaped and rinsed.
Of course, studies tend to make sweeping generalizations and results will vary from city to city. For example, 88 percent of the visitors to San Francisco and Chicago washrooms reportedly washed their hands before leaving. On the other hand, and probably not one that you’d want to touch, more than 25 percent of baseball fans attending an Atlanta Braves game at Turner Field did not lather and rinse. While 84 percent of women did, the average dropped when only 63 percent of men washed. Of course, in defense of men, you can’t linger in the lavatory when the pennant chase is getting interesting, the bases are loaded and Chipper Jones is coming to the plate.
Public hygiene habits between men and women were also pronounced in NYC’s Penn Station where 92 percent of women freshened up but only 64 percent of male New Yorkers did so.
So, what can we learn from the survey besides the fact that women have cleaner “genes” than men or that we shouldn’t shake hands with guys from New York and Atlanta?
October is when we throw out the first germ to officially open the American influenza season. Let’s come clean here: Each year between five and 20 percent of the nation’s population is infected with the flu, more than 200,000 are hospitalized and nearly 36,000 die of flu complications, so says the Centers for Disease Control. (Because the CDC is located in Atlanta, they should be able to do something about those bacteria-laden Braves fans.) And yet, according to the ASM, cold and influenza viruses are spread as often, if not more, by unclean hands than through the sneezing of airborne respiratory droplets onto innocent American victims.
In other words, we can stay healthy this fall by spending just a few seconds at the spigot and the dispenser.
In conjunction with the restroom study, the ASM also conducted a national telephone survey. Answering several hygiene related questions, 23 percent of respondents admitted that they didn’t wash before handling food, 27 percent said they did not scrub after changing a diaper, 58 percent reported not washing after petting a pet, and 79 percent pleaded guilty to not rinsing after handling money. (Since it’s been proven that most of the cash we use is contaminated with bacteria, our money may be in need of an occasional laundering.)
Asked if they washed up after using public powder rooms, 97 percent of women and 96 percent of men surveyed answered “yes.” What did this project prove? That not only do we have illness-causing cooties on our hands, but we’re big fat liars, too.
I’m no germa-phobe but this fall I can guarantee you I’ll be holding the hands of more women than men.
posted by Jack W. Williams | 10:29 PM
1 Comments:
Jack,
Good post. I've always been a freak about keeping clean in restrooms. To watch me would be quite comical. For the record... I wash.
By the way, if you go to the main blogger page (blogger.com), it will tell you how to turn on a feature which kills these ad-dropping morons (actually just automated programs).
Thought you might like to know.
Cheers!
Luke
Post a Comment
<< Home