Soap with a toy inside didn't clearly change how often caregivers washed hands
Who it’s about: Children, Parents
- No difference
A toy inside the kids' soap didn't clearly change how often carers washed their hands, against a toy beside it.
Randomised trial of 229 caregivers in a poor South African community · vs the same soap with the toy beside it · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ student thesis, not checked by other scientists; numbers unreliable; summary claims more than the results show
The study
Who took part
229 households in Delft, a poor community near Cape Town, South Africa, with 288 children aged 3 to 9. One main caregiver in each household was watched.
What they did
Children got four bars of small soap over 12 weeks. In 123 households the toy was inside the soap, so children had to wash again and again to reach it. In 106 households the soap came with the toy next to it, and both groups kept the same home visits on health.
What happened
At the second snack time, about 52 in 100 carers in the toy-inside group washed their hands, against 37 in 100. This gap wasn't reliable, and at the first snack time there was no difference. The paper's counts don't add up, and its claim that the soap builds habits goes beyond what was measured.
Source
Handwashing behavior and habit formation in the household: evidence from the pilot randomized evaluation of HOPE SOAP© in South Africa (2018)
