Large gender and age differences in hand disinfection behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: Field data from Swiss retail stores

Hand hygiene is one of the key low-cost measures proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to contain the spread of COVID-19. In a field study conducted during the pandemic in June and July 2020 in Switzerland, we captured the hand disinfection behavior of customers in five stores of a large retail chain (n = 8,245). The study reveals considerable differences with respect to gender and age: Women were 8.3 percentage points more likely to disinfect their hands compared to men. With respect to age, we identified a steep increase across age groups, with people age 60 years and older disinfecting their hands significantly more often than younger adults (>+16.7 percentage points) and youth (>+ 31.7 percentage points). A validation study conducted in December 2020 (n = 1,918) confirmed the gender and age differences at a later point in the pandemic. In sum, the differences between gender and age groups are substantial and should be considered in the design of protective measures to ensure clean and safe hands.