Two prominent reports (in Danish) seek to explore the relationships between a high standard of personal hygiene and cleaning across public and private sector institutions. The reports highlight the great importance of hygiene for the central management of organizational welfare, across public accessible locations, and its impact on infection and disease spread.
The reports can be requested in Danish below.
- Danish report published by 3F is the United Federation of Workers in Denmark is a Danish labor union. The union was formed in 2004, from the merger of the Danish Women Workers’ Union and the Danish General Workers’ Union.
- Summary: Cleaning has become more popular with citizens than ever before. Good cleaning for many has become synonymous with security and trust when citizens use today institutions, schools, libraries, elderly care and many other municipal spaces we live in.
Mentioned in the piece were several familiar faces to Sani Nudge, lending these thoughts on infection prevention, education of hygienic cleaning practices, and hand hygiene.
From Dr. Marco Bo Hansen, Sani Nudge Medical Director:
- “The most important thing to ensure high quality in cleaning is dedicated, motivated staff who understand the importance of good cleaning – including the consequences of poor cleaning.”
Sani Nudge Clinical Advisory member, Hans Jørn Kolmos, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Southern Denmark, says the following:
- “The crucial thing for the quality of the cleaning is that you have a well-trained staff. The notion that you can take people in from the street and clean hygienically is completely wrong. You can only clean if you have a proper education. Over time, I have been concerned about whether the staff is well trained. It is both about cleaning technique, but it is also about some insight into basic hygiene. It is a problem that you focus on cleaning aesthetically instead of hygienically clean, where you, among other things. interrupts transmission routes. Staff should be trained to remove infection instead of just making it look nice. And it is also an educational issue. ”
On a study conducted every two years by the National Research Center for the Working Environment, in which 38,000 respondents answered the most recent survey in 2018 (The National Research Center for the Working Environment, 2018; 2). This study shows, among other things, that cleaning assistants are among the five job groups that have the fewest working hours and the greatest worry about being fired. In addition, the group is also among the five job groups with the worst self-rated health and lowest score for mental health.
The increased recognition of the cleaning staff’s contribution has been experienced in particular in connection with the reopening of society from COVID19 in April 2020. Here, the cleaning staff has also been more present at the institutions in the municipalities that do not normally have visible cleaning, as the cleaning frequency many sites have been doubled for the benefit of both users and employees. Among other things, Lars Münter, chairman of the secretariat of the Council for Better Hygiene, says to the study:
- “Under Corona, we have seen a movement towards the cleaning being more recognized for the business-critical service as it is. You have gone from being this invisible person to being the cleaning help that everyone is really happy to see and that you want to come by all the time. ”
The primary takeaway is that cleaning is a crucial strategy to combatting infection but also increasing quality of life in society.
If you are curious to know more about infection prevention and how to avoid spread of pathogens, do not hesitate to contact the Sani Nudge team.
