When a health facility's "quality and safety climate or culture" values hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC), this results in both patients and health workers feeling protected and cared for.
To prioritize clean hands in health facilities, people at all levels need to believe in the importance of hand hygiene and IPC to save lives, by acting as key players in achieving the appropriate behaviours and attitudes towards it. In other words, health workers at all levels and people accessing health care facilities need to unite on ensuring clean hands.
This year's theme for World Hand Hygiene Day, 5 May 2022, is focused on recognizing that we can add to a facility's climate or culture of safety and quality through cleaning our hands but also that a strong quality and safety culture will encourage people to clean hands at the right times and with the right products.
Unite, talk and work together on hand hygiene for high quality safer care everywhere.
Campaign details
Campaign theme: A health care "quality and safety climate or culture” that values hand hygiene and infection prevention and control.
Slogan: Unite for safety: clean your hands.
Campaign objectives: To recognize that people of all levels should work together to influence the culture/climate through clean hands knowledge and behaviour, to meet the common goal of safety and quality in the health care organization.
Calls to action
- Health care workers: thank you for leading by example and encouraging others to clean their hands.
- IPC practitioners: thank you for engaging health workers to be part of new hand hygiene initiatives.
- Quality and safety leads: thank you for working with infection prevention colleagues to support hand hygiene improvement.
- Facility managers: thank you for promoting a quality and safety culture to ensure clean hands.
- Policy makers: thank you for prioritizing resources, training and programmes on hand hygiene.
- People who use health care: thank you for getting involved in local hand hygiene campaigns and activities.
Videos & tools
- NEW CAMPAIGN VIDEO
- This WHO video provides promotional and instructional messages that outline why and how uniting for an organizational safety climate is important.
- New resource: Supporting you to talk about hand hygiene: A primer for those in health care
- Applying the WHO multimodal strategy for successful infection prevention improvements in health care!
- Initiative for patient safety - hand hygiene with private organizations
- Tools for creating an institutional safety climate
- 5 May 2022 advocacy slides
Announcements
Faces of the Campaign
Global Goal 2022! Show your face on the World Hand Hygiene Day “faces of the campaign” 2022 wall.
We want to highlight 1000 faces from around the world to show that people are UNITED in support of a health care quality and safety climate/culture through clean hands and infection prevention. You will be featured on the “faces of the campaign” 2022 wall if you submit your photos now! They will be promoted by WHO in the 10 days leading up to 5 May 2022 – let’s see 1000 faces in 10 days!
Join the campaign
Show your facility’s commitment to hand hygiene improvement at the point of care. Sign up for the Save Lives: Clean Your Hands campaign.
Campaign essentials
There is a wide range of campaign materials such as posters, social media assets (selfie boards), web banners, Zoom backgrounds, etc. available in the six official UN languages. All assets, the high and low resolution files and translations are accessible for download through the below link.
MAIN CAMPAIGN AND CALLS TO ACTION POSTERS 2022
A range of posters including those calling for continued action by key target audiences at all levels of health care are available. Please use this year’s approach of thanking people as a positive way of engaging them to do this. These messages work in all languages and are available in all six official UN languages.
Campaign poster
Facility managers
Quality/safety leads
IPC practitioners
Health workers
Policy makers
People using care
Questions & answers
Q. Is there a relationship between an institution’s safety climate/culture and infection prevention and control including hand hygiene action?
Q. What does the organizational culture mean for hand hygiene?
Q. What elements of a safety culture can influence hand hygiene action?
Q. What role do health workers’ perceptions play in the safety climate of an organization and how does this influence hand hygiene?
Hand hygiene in context of COVID-19
Aide-memoire: Infection prevention and control (IPC) principles and procedures for COVID-19 vaccination...
This Aide Memoire is for policy makers, immunization programme managers, infection prevention and control (IPC) focal points at national, sub-national,...
Hand hygiene for all initiative: improving access and behaviour in health care facilities
The WHO and UNICEF-led Hand Hygiene for All Initiative aims at ensuring implementation for WHO's global recommendations on hand hygiene to prevent and...
Recommendations to Member States to improve hand hygiene practices to help prevent the transmission of...
WHO recommends member states provide universal access to public hand hygiene stations and making their use obligatory on entering and leaving any public...
Key documents on hand hygiene
Core competencies for infection prevention and control professionals
The purpose of this document is to define who is the infection prevention and control (IPC) professional and identify what core competencies are needed...
Minimum requirements for infection prevention and control programmes
The purpose of this document is to present and promote the minimum requirements for IPC programmes at the national and health care facility level, identified...
On the basis of scientific evidence and with input from international experts and IPC colleagues working in countries, WHO recently identified the essential...
Hand Hygiene: Why, How & When?
Thousands of people die every day around the world from infections acquired while receiving health care.Hands are the main pathways of germ transmission...
A guide to the implementation of the WHO multimodal hand hygiene improvement strategy
WHO_IER_PSP_2009.02_chi.pdf (5.297Mb) WHO_IER_PSP_2009.02_per.pdf (1.857Mb)
WHO guidelines on hand hygiene in health care
The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators and health authorities with a thorough...
Key reminders
The Your 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene approach defines the key moments when health-care workers should perform hand hygiene.
This evidence-based, field-tested, user-centred approach is designed to be easy to learn, logical and applicable in a wide range of settings.
This approach recommends health-care workers to clean their hands:
- before touching a patient;
- before clean/aseptic procedures;
- after body fluid exposure/risk;
- after touching a patient; and
- after touching patient surroundings.
For more key reminders, please visit our hand hygiene page.
About hand sanitizer
Resources