Handwashing Awareness Campaign

Handwashing is a key, often-overlooked behavior that is important for food safety, disease prevention, and personal health.

Frequent and effective handwashing could prevent 9.3 million illnesses each year in the United States.

Even healthy animals carry germs that make people sick.

It is important to remind and encourage both children and adults to wash hands after handling animals, after using the restroom, after carrying garbage, after coughing or sneezing, and before preparing food or eating.

To support this effort, WVU Extension Service has developed signage to use at fairs, festivals, camps, and other places where people mingle with animals. For examples, signs should be place at barns, show rings, holding pens, and petting zoos. If the facility is indoor the sign should be placed so visitors see it as they exit the animal holding area.

Each WVU Extension county office has received a supply of signs. For general public use, we also have signs ready for downloading. These signs are saved as Adobe PDFs and are provided in two sizes. There are both color and black-and-white versions.

In addition, a card of handwashing instructions has been developed to promote the importance of washing hands, especially after handling animals. Each county office has also received a supply of these cards. Adobe PDFs of these cards are also provided.

Materials included are in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF documents can only be viewed and printed using the Adobe Acrobat software. The Acrobat Reader is available for Macintosh, Windows, DOS, and Unix systems. You may download it free of charge from Adobe. Choose the Acrobat Reader with Search version and the platform version you need from the pop-up lists at their site.

Resources

Downloadable Signage

Full Size Signs (12" x 18")

• Colorized Poem
• Colorized Hand
• Black and White Poem
• Black and White Hand

Compact Signs (8 1/2" x 11")

• Colorized Poem
• Colorized Hand
• Black and White Poem
• Black and White Hand

Downloadable Cards

• Full Color
• Black and White
• Spot Color
• Spot Black and White

Other Resources

Germ City Interactive Exhibit and Curriculum

Proven behavior-changing handwashing health lesson for elementary and middle school classroom and community events. Comes complete with interactive exhibit and curriculum.

Learn more about the Germ City project and how to get the exhibit for your classroom or public event. Contact Cindy Fitch or call (304) 293-2796 ext. 3341.