From the French hygiène , the term hygiene refers to cleanliness and grooming, whether of the body or of homes or public places. A distinction can be made between personal or private hygiene (whose application is the responsibility of the individual himself) and public hygiene (which must be guaranteed by the State).
Hygiene is also linked to the branch of medicine that is dedicated to the preservation of health and the prevention of disease. In this case, the concept includes the knowledge and techniques that must be applied to control the factors that can have harmful effects on health.
For example: washing your hands with plenty of soap and water before eating is an essential hygiene habit to avoid illness. The recent influenza A pandemic has highlighted the importance of this hygiene practice to avoid contagion.
It is important to emphasize that hygiene becomes a fundamental and vital part of health centers. And it is that, on occasions, precisely because of not following the norms established in this sense, all kinds of infections have taken place that have brought serious setbacks for hospitalized patients and even death.
Among the many types of hygiene that exist, we can highlight, for example, the so-called oral hygiene which, as its name suggests, is one that is carried out to kill all the germs and dirt that may be in a person's mouth. person. Brushing your teeth after every meal, flossing and rinsing or regular check-ups at the dentist are some of the main actions that can be carried out to achieve perfect oral hygiene.
If these habits are not followed, the citizen in question will encounter problems and diseases such as bad breath, gingivitis, cavities, tartar formation and even the one known as pyorrhea, which results in the loss of bone in the tooth.
Postural hygiene is also another type. In this case, it is understood as the whole set of actions that must be carried out with the clear objective of not having bad habits in terms of posture and overexertion that can give rise to problems such as low back pain.
The authorities began to worry about public hygiene after the Industrial Revolution, when the precarious conditions that existed inside the factories began to decimate the population.
Among the spaces and facilities that have been created throughout history to promote and achieve that hygiene, both public and private, we could highlight showers, sinks, toilets, bathtubs…
Workplaces, which are the public place where people spend most of the day, must be clean and have accessible drinking water. Bathrooms must have sinks and be located in close proximity to workstations.
If the hygiene of a company is faulty, it is possible that employees get sick and infect each other, which is detrimental to public health and to the activity of the company.