Canadians Have Dirty Hands, Clean Houses

Just more than half of us are washing our hands as much as doctors say we should.

A new study says Canadians are about average when it comes to upholding personal and household hygiene, tying for fourth place in a survey of 12 countries' and regions' handwashing habits. About 54 per cent of Canadians were found to have washed their hands at least five times a day, putting them behind Brazil, Germany, and France, but tied with the Middle East, according to the Global Hygiene Council. Doctors recommend washing your hands at least six times a day, as it is the best way to prevent the spread of communicable disease, especially during flu season. Still, Canada's levels are better than the hand-washing habits of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, India, and China. Canadians do a better job of keeping their houses clean, though, placing third behind the U.K. and Australia in "household hygiene." For that measure, swabs were taken from 1,000 homes across all of the countries and then analyzed for their bacterial content. Not surprisingly, the same study also found that students had the worst hygiene of all groups, while women were twice as likely to wash their hands as men.