Targeted Hygiene: a risk-based approach to applying policies and hygiene interventions

Targeted Hygiene, applied with behaviour change models was used to control transmission of COVID-19 and other infections, in public areas at the 2021 COP26 Glasgow summit. Public messaging and strategically placed hand santizer stations were deployed to promote targeted hand hygiene.

International large scale events, such as COP 26, Glasgow, Scotland, November 2021 bring risks of infectious disease transmission in crowded environments. In contrast to popular deep-cleaning approaches which often involve indiscriminate disinfection-spraying once daily. This paper describes the development and implementation of an evidence-based risk assessment process to develop effective and sustainable non pharmaceutical interventions using principles of targeted hygiene to break the chain of infection.

• QMRA is a tool to estimate possible risk of infection in a specific scenario.
• Understanding behaviours in a space influences experimental variables. It includes seeding site services swapped for contamination and services included in the targeted hygiene intervention. The data from baseline spread is useful alone, and the feedback from the intervention phase builds rational, rational food dynamic hygiene approaches.
• This is the first study of its kind to incorporate observational feedback, pathogen modelling and metagenomics to infer in rest infection risk in a public space.
• Results from this study provide empirical evidence about how often public services should be cleaned to protect health and help refine risk of infection modelling in public spaces.

For further information, contact Adrian.Paskey@reckitt.com.

Ackerley L, Buckley C, Paskey A, Cooper S, Slater K, Bainbridge S 2022, Targeted Hygiene: a risk-based approach to applying policies and hygiene interventions, American Society for Microbiology Microbe Conference, June 10 2022, Washington D.C.