Dirty Hands Research Articles

Dirty hands on troubled waters: Sanitation, access to water and child health in Ethiopia

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate the impact of access to drinking water sources and sanitation facilities on the incidence of diarrheal diseases among children below 5 years of age in Ethiopia using the propensity score matching technique with a polychotomous treatment variable. We find that among the water sources traditionally considered as improved, only water piped into dwelling, yard or plot leads to a large percentage point reduction in diarrhea incidence. The other water sources, generally believed as clean, are not effective in reducing diarrhea even compared with some of the unimproved water sources. We also find that some unimproved water sources and sanitation facilities are less inferior than they are believed to be. These results suggest that the traditional way of categorizing different types of improved and unimproved water sources and sanitation facilities into a dichotomous variable, “improved” or “unimproved”, could be misleading as it masks the heterogeneous effects of the water sources and the sanitation facilities.

Political Realism and Dirty Hands: Value Pluralism, Moral Conflict and Public Ethics

This paper draws on the underappreciated realist thought of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire and Judith Shklar, rehearses their critique of moralism and extends it to a position which seems far from obvious a target: the dirty hands (DH) thesis, which is mostly owed to Michael Walzer, and which a number of contemporary realists (i.e. Mark Philp, Duncan Bell, and Hans-Jorg Sigwart) have recently appealed to in their endeavour to challenge moralism and/or tackle the insufficiently addressed question of what a more affirmative, realist public ethic might involve. In illustrating that the DH thesis is a thinly disguised brand of the moralism which realists reject, I shall not merely put some flesh on the bones of Shklar’s scattered, unsystematic objections to Walzer’s thought – the only realist who explicitly criticized his DH thesis. Rather, I wish to cast doubt on the internal coherence and ‘realism’ of contemporary realist positions which invoke that thesis and to illustrate that the discrepancy between Berlin’s, Shklar’s and Hampshire’s thought and the DH thesis: i) enriches our understanding of how we might wish to distinguish more meaningfully realism from the ideal/non-ideal theory debate; and ii) enables us to pursue a particular direction in which a more positive realist approach to public ethics and integrity might be developed – an approach which we might term Heraclitian realism, and which follows from their idiosyncratic, innovative, and radical account of the place of conflict in human life.

From the Editor

In this introduction to the silver anniversary issue of Common Knowledge, the journal’s founding editor explains the unusual format of CK 25:1–3. Arranged in eleven “conversations” of pieces published since 1992, the format fulfills a promise made in that year to Richard Rorty that a full issue would be devoted, some day, to conversations among people who have inspired in each other “interesting and important” intellectual disagreements. The editor further explains how, over the intervening years, the disagreements among contributors have evolved. While Common Knowledge began as an enterprise of “Left Kuhnian” or “Left Wittgensteinian” contextualists, hoping to get beyond the problem known as “incommensurability,” it has become over the past quarter-century a venue in which the commensuration of paradigms and worldviews, even religions and cultures, is continuously essayed. As he writes: “The question, in other words, is [no longer] whether worldviews are commensurable. The question is whether we should do what it takes—all that it takes—to communicate and reconcile with those we fear. . . . But whoever—let us admit it—takes on the task is going to end up with dirty hands. This job is not one for contextualists in white gloves. . . . There is no clean methodology for reconciling worldviews at odds. . . . By this time . . . our hands are filthy, and our shoes unwearable indoors.”

Analysis of knowledge and attitudes related to parasitic infections among inhabitants of Ahvaz County, Khuzestan Province, Iran

Parasitic diseases are among the major health problems of various societies, especially people in developing countries, causing high economic and mortality burdens. Many researchers have reported that awareness and knowledge of a disease are effective in preventing and controlling the disease. The aim of the present study was to assess the knowledge and attitudes on parasitic diseases of the population in Ahvaz County, southwestern Iran. This community-based cross-sectional study was carried out in 2017 on 3500 subjects above 15 years old of Ahvaz County. First, participants were provided the necessary information regarding the study, and then data were collected using a constructed questionnaire. Of the 3500 participants, 1732 (49.5%) were female and 1768 (50.5%) were male, 348 (9.9%) said that they had been infected with a parasitic disease at least once in their lifetime. Almost half of the participants (42.8%) knew malaria was a parasitic disease and 50.2%, 48.9%, and 41.5% were aware of the possible transmission of parasitic diseases through uncooked meat, dirty hands, and close contact with animals.Regarding clinical symptoms, 73.2% and 32.6% of the respondents knew diarrhea and abdominal pain respectively were clinical symptoms of intestinal parasitic diseases. However, only 31.3% were aware of the close contact with cats and the risk of human toxoplasmosis and possible abortion in pregnant women. The findings reveal that the attitude of most participants toward treatment was positive (93.9%), but only 47.5% of believed that disinfecting fruits and vegetables could prevent intestinal parasitic infections.

Hostage authorship and dirty hands: A reply to Tang

In a recent paper published in this journal, we discussed a phenomenon that we referred to as ‘hostage authorship’. By this we meant a practice where an undeserving person X is included as author on a research paper as the result of a hostage-like situation, where the researchers of the article cannot proceed with their work unless conditions raised by X are fulfilled, including providing an authorship position on the paper. We proposed that this sort of situation occasionally resembles the ‘problem of dirty hands’ discussed in political science and political philosophy, and that researchers may sometimes be required to ‘get their hands dirty’ by accepting the request of X. Bor Luen Tang has raised a number of critical remarks to our account. In this paper we address his criticism and defend our original account.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Hand Washing among Mothers of Children 0-59 Months of Age in Lagos Nigeria

This study examined the knowledge, attitudes and practice of hand washing among mothers of children 0-59 months of age in Lagos Nigeria. The descriptive survey method was used to gather data for the study. The study was conducted in three local government areas of Lagos. The local government areas are Eti-Osa, Lagos Mainland and Alimosho. 934,886 female residents of the three local government areas formed the population of study while 406 respondents formed the sample size. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The study found that 7 in 10 mothers of children 0-59 months of age had high exposure to the campaign about the danger of dirty hands (73.8%). About 6 in 10 of them similarly had high knowledge of the subject matter and as a result, mothers who were knowledgeable about hand washing practiced it. It concluded that has been a gap between recommendations on improving hand washing practice and actual actions on such recommendations. Hence, this study recommends that intervention efforts should address the infrastructure gaps that negatively impact on the availability of these hand washing-boosting factors, particularly, access to water, if improvement is to be achieved in terms of practice.

Saving ourselves? On rescue and humanitarian action

AbstractThis article contributes to the international political theory of humanitarianism by unpicking the politics of humanitarian action’s simplest expression: saving human lives in the name of humanity. Both saving lives and defining notions of common humanity are closely interrelated acts of power. What saving a life means depends on a prior definition of humanity; humanitarians’ acts of rescue are the measure of their commitment to humanity. The politics of rescue and the politics of humanity are inextricably linked. The article explores four facets of this nexus. First, it considers the meanings of rescue, from saving bodies to saving lives, linked to contingent understandings of humanity. Second, it turns to the rescuers, for whom rescue performs particular functions, not least the need to preserve a sense of self. Third, it situates their often narcissistic motives in relation to the consequences of humanitarian action. Fourth, it addresses the power imbalance inherent in rescue and the problem of causing harm. It concludes that rescue is always an act of presumption, but one that can be tempered by humanitarian actors willing to embrace their role as ‘moral politicians’ (Walzer), aware of their power and their dirty hands, and open to contrasting understandings of humanity.

Contamination Is “Good” for Your Memory! Further Evidence for the Adaptive View of Memory

Five studies were designed to provide further evidence of contamination effects in memory. In study 1, participants were told to imagine that either (1) they had been infected in the grasslands of a foreign land (ancestral contamination); (2) they had been infected during a trip in a foreign country (modern contamination); or (3) as tour guide, they had to organize a trip (control condition). Words processed within a contamination scenario (ancestral or modern) were remembered better than words processed in a control scenario. In studies 2 and 3, adults were shown objects that had been touched by someone who had washed his hands after visiting the toilets compared to someone who had not. In a surprise recall test, objects touched by dirty hands were not reliably more recalled than objects touched by clean hands. In study 4, objects were presented with the drawing of a face of a sick or healthy person. The memory performance in the surprise recall test of objects was higher in the sick face context than in the healthy face context. In study 5, faces of people who had signs of contamination or looked healthy were presented next to objects. In study 5a, participants rated their level of perceived discomfort when they imagined touching the objects next to faces (sick vs. healthy) and were then tested for their memory of objects. In study 5b, the same stimuli were presented but here had to be explicitly remembered. In both studies 5a and 5b, source memory was also evaluated. In both studies, participants remembered contaminated objects better than non-contaminated objects and they also remembered contaminated sources better. Taken together, the findings provide further evidence for the adaptive memory view (Nairne 2010), according to which items processed in a context of survival and/or reproduction (here a context of contamination) are remembered better than items processed in non-survival/reproduction contexts.

Dirty Hands, the Scapegoat, and the Collective Responsibility of Religious Communities

The article connects the debates surrounding the problem of dirty hands with those regarding collective responsibility, mainly via René Girard’s scapegoat mechanism and his view on mimetic violence. By virtue of the distinction between group intentions and individual pre‐reflective intentions, the article will explore the notion that groups are morally responsible for acts accomplished with dirty hands, and whether individual participants in group actions are also responsible. Moreover, the article introduces a reflection on the collective shame of a larger community for what only a small group has done in its name. In a religious framework of thought, both the idea of a limited individual responsibility and that of collective guilt are valuable for furthering the dialogue on religious reconciliation.

Responding to devious demands for co-authorship: A rejoinder to Bülow and Helgesson’s ‘dirty hands’ justification

Bülow and Helgesson discussed the practice of gift/honorary authorships and expounded on a most devious form of these, termed ‘hostage authorship’. The authors drew a parallel of such situations in research and publishing with the problem of ‘dirty hands’. In this case, acceding, albeit with regrets, may well be ‘… what we ought to do, even if it requires us to do something that is intrinsically bad’, especially if ‘this is both practically necessary and proportionate to the end’. Here, I caution against this being a morally cogent, normative course of action. Tangible benefits from research not yet performed or published could not be predicted with any certainty, and as such could not be deemed sufficiently important to override moral constraints of justice and fairness. The utilitarian argument for any measure of beneficence with ‘dirty hands’ could therefore be nothing more than a self-serving act, or a self-exonerating form of moral disengagement. Such actions could have lasting ill effects on junior researchers and perpetuate a dark research culture, which will ultimately undermine the research enterprise and the pursuit of knowledge. One could further argue that what ‘ought to be’ done when coerced or held hostage in an authorship context is to break the cycle by reporting on the perpetrators, and ultimately for the community to devise consensus measures that could deter such predatory free riders.

Food safety behavior observed in German TV cooking shows

Since a few years, cooking shows have enjoyed great popularity in Germany. Currently, about 60 different formats are broadcasted on German television. In the field of food preparation and nutrition, they represent a significant passive source of information. This study aims to assess food safety practices in German TV cooking shows and to identify potential differences between professional and amateur chefs. With the help of an observational sheet, three trained evaluators examined 100 episodes of eight popular TV cooking shows. On average, the evaluators observed 1.2 hygiene mistakes per minute or one hygiene lapse every 50 s. The most common mistakes include the use of unwashed cutting boards, adding ingredients with unwashed hands and wiping dirty hands with tea towels. A lack of handwashing before beginning food preparation and after coughing, sneezing, wiping the nose or sweat or touching their hair, eyes, etc. was also frequently observed. No significant differences between professional and amateur chefs were found for the overall frequency of food safety mistakes, but professional chefs more often complied with specific personal hygiene measures. Findings suggest that little attention is paid to safe food handling practices in German TV cooking shows. However, they may be particularly suited to convey safe food handling practices to a broad audience, not least because of their popularity.

Moral Distress as a Symptom of Dirty Hands

The experience of ‘moral distress’ is an increasing focal point of contemporary medical and bioethics literature, yet it has received little attention in discussions intersecting with ethical theory. This is unfortunate, as it seems that the peculiar phenomenon may well help us to better understand a number of issues bearing both practical and theoretical significance. In this article, I provide a robust psychological profile of moral distress in order to shed a newfound light upon the longstanding problem of ‘dirty hands’. I argue that moral distress offers evidence of the existence of dirty hands situations. By examining moral distress and its relationship to cases of dirty hands, it appears that few of us are completely immune to susceptibility to these sorts of troubling experiences. With this concern in mind, I provide various recommendations to help alleviate our morally distressing personal and professional lives.

Impact of a national deworming campaign on the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminthiasis in Uganda (2004-2016): Implications for national control programs.

BackgroundSoil-transmitted Helminths and Anemia potentially reduce and retard cognitive and physical growth in school-age children with great implications for national control programs in Africa. After 13 years of deworming and limited health education campaigns, a study was undertaken to evaluate the impact of deworming interventions on the prevalence and intensity of soil-transmitted helminthic infections in school-age children in Uganda.MethodologyA cross-sectional study was carried out in six regions of Uganda, where two districts were randomly selected per region based on the ecological zones in the country. Included in the study were the districts; Mpigi and Nakasongola from the Central; Nakapiripirit and Kotido from Karamoja; Arua and Yumbe from West Nile; Gulu and Alebtong from the North; Kaliro and Mbale from the East; Hoima and Bundibugyo in the West. Five schools were randomly selected from each district and in each school 50 children aged 6–14 years were randomly selected. Stool samples were taken each child and examined for the presence of helminthic infections. A short pretested questionnaire was administered to each participant to obtain their knowledge, attitude, and practice relating to STH infections, their control. General observations were made on environmental sanitation in the schools. The location of each school was geo-referenced using a GPS machine (Garmin®GPSMAP62, Garmin Ltd, Southampton, UK).ResultsIn total, 4,285 children were assessed including 719(16.82%) from central region, 718(16.80%) from eastern region, 719 (16.82%) from northern region, 689 (18.82%) from Karamoja region, 717(16.77%) from West Nile region and 723(16.91%) from western region. The average age of the children was 12.6 years with a standard deviation, SD 1.8 years and the minimum age was 6 years and upper age limit of 12 years. The percentage of boys (50.1%) and girls (49.9%) was comparable. 8.8% (95% CI; 8.0–9.7) were infected with at least any one STH species. Hookworm was the most prevalent (7.7%; 95% CI; 6.9–8.5) followed by whipworms (Trichuris trichiura) (1.3%; 95% CI; 1.0–1.7) and roundworms (Ascaris lumbricoides) (0.5%; 95% CI; 0.3–0.7). Some children had Schistosoma mansoni, 13.0% (95% CI; 12.0–14.0). All the children knew what soil transmitted helminths were (62.8%, 95% CI: 61.3–64.2) and most common knowledge of information were from; home (39%, 95% CI: 37.1–40.8), media (radio& newspaper)(11%, 95% CI: 9.8–12.2), school(65.7%, 95% CI: 63.9–67.5) and friends(11.5%, 95% CI: 10.3–12.7). Majority were aware of how one gets infected with soil transmitted helminths through; eating contaminated food (77.5%, 95% CI: 76.0–79.1), walking barefoot (59.6%, 95% CI: 57.8–61.5), drinking contaminated water (52.9%, 95% CI: 51.0–54.8), playing in dirty places (21.8%, 95% CI: 20.2–23.3) and dirty hands (2.3%, 95% CI: 1.7–2.9).ConclusionSemi-annual deworming campaigns have proved effective in significantly reducing helminthic infections in most of the districts in Uganda. Regular evaluations are vital to assess impact of the interventions and guide programme implementation. Our data shows that the prevalence of infection has been reduced to a level where STH morbidity is no longer of public health importance in most districts surveyed.

Dirty hands: The toxic politics of denunciation.

In September 2013, President Correa balanced himself on a felled log over an oil waste pit in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Extending a bare hand dripping with crude, he launched La Mano Sucia de Chevron campaign, demanding accountability for decades of contamination. This article explores the role of bodily knowledge in witnessing industrial contamination and struggles for environmental justice. Situating the mano sucia in the history of activism in the region, I show how the juxtaposition of different hands within the same motif reveals profoundly asymmetric relationships to the toxic entanglements that oil produces. Dirtied hands reveal the co-production of toxicity and power in extractive landscapes: At times throughout this article, the gesture calls for corporate accountability and distributive environmental justice, at other times, it reveals the systemic production of material, social and political distance between the accrual of benefit and the production of harm in an industrial-capitalist order. While drawing on the central role of bodily knowledges in apprehending environmental harm, I argue that bodily knowledges must also be examined for their specific relationships to forms of power and exploitation, and for their potential for appropriation by other parties - even when dedicated to condemning environmental injustice.

SVEIKOS GYVENSENOS GEBĖJIMŲ UGDYMAS IKIMOKYKLINĖJE UGDYMO ĮSTAIGOJE

We live in an environment rich with various micro-organisms. A lot of germs fall in our hands every day. Various viruses and bacterial infections are spreading through the unclean hands, what can lead to serious health risks. Teachers of pre-school education have the responsibility to encourage young people to develop proper hygiene habits. The principles of personal hygiene must be implemented continuously on a daily basis, by offering suitable, acceptable and interesting forms of activity for children. In order to motivate the development of personal hygiene habits, the creative approach to the importance of clean hands were emphasized: interesting researches, explorations, experiments, moody hands washing motions were performed; various creative activities were offered by using the imagination. Particularly, children were the most motivated by activity through information technology. After carrying out explorations and experiments, the children concluded that there are a lot of germs on the dirty hands and that we are carrying them on foods in such a way. They were convinced that a lot of germs are found on non-greasy fruits and vegetables. The topic of invisible living organisms is very interesting for the children. Once again, it became clear that in order to understand the essence, the child has to study, experiment, explain, discover and learn it by himself. The children emotionally shared their observations, reasoned, focused, and solved the problems during the activities. Tasks, observations, tests gave a sense of pride and self-confidence, all of which it helped to grasp the importance of caring for the cleanness of hands. Children began to wash their hands thoroughly and shared the recipe for soap with their parents. They gave as a present their own made-up soaps for their little friends in the kindergarten. It is likely that all activities will have a positive impact on the formation of children's healthy lifestyle. Additionally, adults must be an example to follow for a healthy lifestyle. Keywords: microbes, healthy lifestyle, clean hands, explorations, experiments, creative activity.

Is there any perceptiveness about the mode of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome? An analysis among the adolescent tribal students in Tamil Nadu.

Background:Cognizance about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) among the community is still lacking. Seldom studies done in tribal area and to indentify the awareness about HIV/AIDS among the adolescent tribal students in Jawadhu hills of Tamil Nadu, with the objectives includes on social, demographical, and knowledge about HIV/AIDS were taken. For primary data, survey method and secondary data from various literatures gathered.Materials and Methods:Schedule tribe adolescent students, between the age groups of 13–21 years, from 8th to 12th standard, exclusively from Vellore and Tiruvannamalai educational districts, were taken, by applying STRATA method.Results:A total of 938 students from various tribal schools participated. Amongst them, 507 (54%) were males and 431 (46%) were females. Half of the respondents (50%) agreed that blood transfusion, intravenous drug use, and sharing infected needles are the major modes of transmission. Nearly 35% agreed that HIV/AIDS is transmitted by hugging, tattooing, dirty hands, breastfeeding, kissing on cheeks, shaving at the barber shop, shaking hands with AIDS patients, homosexuality and are food and waterborne.Conclusions:Formal HIV/AIDS education should be mandatory in their curriculum, where teachers get an opportunity to deliver the scientific information about HIV/AIDS. To acquire better knowledge about HIV/AIDS, sex education should be included in the mainstream of curriculum with the assistance of educational consultants, professional social workers, and also local non-governmental organizations to conduct further mindfulness camps about the HIV/AIDS.

Dirty Hands and Moral Injury

AbstractMoral injury describes the effects of violence on veterans beyond what trauma discourse can describe. I put moral injury in conversation with a separate but related concept, dirty hands. Focusing on Michael Walzer's framing of dirty hands and Jonathan Shay's understanding of moral injury, I argue that moral injury can be seen as part of the dirt of a political leader's dirty hands decisions. Such comparison can focus more attention on the broader institutional context in which such dirty hands decisions are executed, while contributing to the growing vocabulary of moral conflict, trauma, and harm.

The Problem of Democratic Dirty Hands: Citizen Complicity, Responsibility, and Guilt

Abstract This paper outlines and explores the problem of democratic dirty hands (DDH), the sui generis moral situation where democratic politicians justifiably violate both a cherished moral principle and the fundamental processes of democratic governance. Some recent contributions to the dirty-hands (DH) debate have argued that the principles of democratic governance render DDH impossible. The paper rejects this view as based on a misunderstanding of the minimal and necessary conditions for both DH and democratic overnance. However, DDH does raise interesting issues concerning the complicity of citizens with their politicians’ DH. Citizens are accessories to such acts and have a duty to contribute to the reparations for the victims of DDH. Furthermore, as citizens bear some responsibility for the moral violations that were done in their name, they properly ought to feel some of the moral pollution that these actions generated.

Political Revolution As Moral Risk

Questions about dirty hands have often focused on legitimate, secure leaders deciding whether to violate important deontological principles or the rules of interpersonal morality. The purpose of this paper is to show that revolutionaries have dirty hands; revolutionaries do wrong by engaging in unilateral usurpation of the existing system with the hope that latter benefits will justify their actions. Yet, once the revolution securely generates improvements for the common good, the initial usurpation becomes increasingly irrelevant to judgments of the new government’s legitimacy. The paper argues that only retroactive justification—where later success forces opponents and advocates to reinterpret the wrongness of the initial action—can fully capture the complex moral dynamics of revolutions.

Dirty Hands: The One and the Many

The problem of “dirty hands” concerns the possibility that there are situations in which, no matter what one does, there is no way to avoid committing a moral wrong. By presenting a taxonomy, this paper contends that the different ways of responding to the problem correspond to different positions as regards the classic metaphysical theme of “the One and the Many.” It is then suggested that the best, because most realistic, response aligns with an approach that would have us move “towards One, as Many.”