A systematic review of nudges on hand hygiene against the spread of COVID-19

Alexandros Tzikas and George Koulierakis

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2023, vol. 105, issue C

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has posed the greatest threat to global health over the last three years. Due to the temporary shortage of appropriate vaccines, a systematic change in human behaviour is necessary to keep the spread of the virus under control, increasing the quality of basic hygiene practices, such as systematic hand hygiene. Nudges are increasingly used in public health interventions to promote critical preventive hygiene behaviours. This review aimed to investigate the effect and the characteristics of nudges on hand hygiene, as a COVID-19 preventive measure. We systematically reviewed the relevant literature from January 2008 to November 2020. A total of 15 articles met the inclusion criteria. The findings of this review showed that most of the nudging interventions had a positive effect on hand hygiene. Nudges should be included in the existing and future public health interventions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and future pandemics, rather than being an alternative and unconventional tool for public health policies.

Keywords: Public health; COVID-19; Hand hygiene; Handwashing; Hand sanitiser use; Nudging interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804323000721
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:105:y:2023:i:c:s2214804323000721

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2023.102046

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().