Hygiene is a set of practices performed to preserve health.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases." Personal hygiene refers to maintaining the body's cleanliness. Hygiene activities can be grouped into the following: home and everyday hygiene, personal hygiene, medical hygiene, sleep hygiene, and food hygiene. Home and every day hygiene includes hand washing, respiratory hygiene, food hygiene at home, hygiene in the kitchen, hygiene in the bathroom, laundry hygiene, and medical hygiene at home.
Many people equate hygiene with "cleanliness", but hygiene is a broad term. It includes such personal habit choices as how frequently to take a shower or bath, wash hands, trim fingernails, and wash clothes. It also includes attention to keeping surfaces in the home and workplace clean, including bathroom facilities. Adherence to regular hygiene practices is often regarded as a socially responsible and respectable behavior, while neglecting proper hygiene can be perceived as unclean or unsanitary, and may be considered socially unacceptable or disrespectful, while also posing a risk to public health.
Hygiene is a practice related to lifestyle, cleanliness, health, and medicine. In medicine and everyday life, hygiene practices are preventive measures that reduce the incidence and spread of germs leading to disease.
Hygiene practices vary from one culture to another.
In the manufacturing of food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and other products, good hygiene is a critical component of quality assurance.
The terms cleanliness and hygiene are often used interchangeably, which can cause confusion. In general, hygiene refers to practices that prevent spread of disease-causing organisms. Cleaning processes (e.g., handwashing) remove infectious microbes as well as dirt and soil, and are thus often the means to achieve hygiene.
