Diabetes impacts a large portion of the global population. Ten percent of the population in the United States has diabetes while an additional 50 percent of the population is pre-diabetic. With diabetes comes a compromised immune system so one must be vigilant to limit the spread of disease and other infections.

Everyone with compromised immune systems need to take care with their personal environmental hygiene. Many infections come from touching surfaces that are contaminated with pathogens. Keeping surfaces clean will limit the spread of infection in homes, businesses, and public places.

Touch point hygiene

https://www.cdc.gov/hai/prevent/resource-limited/high-touch-surfaces.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1438463918305911

https://www.tweaq.co/blog/news-2/health-and-hygiene-in-public-areas-9

Hand hygiene is a must and keeping your hands clean further limits infection . Hands are the connectors to touch points. Humans touch their faces hundreds of times daily and if their hands are contaminated it is possible they participate in the chain of infection.

https://www.healthybuildswestpalm.com/blog/hand-hygiene-will-impact-the-wellness-of-any-community-ignaz-semmelweis-.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480019/

https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(14)00183-7/fulltext

We know from studies that air quality impacts human health as well and contributes to microbial resistance and hence is tied to the global threat of antimicrobial resistance. Dirty air impacts human health and specifically diabetics.

https://www.healthybuildswestpalm.com/blog/diabetes-requires-higher-levels-of-hygiene.html

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25635985/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6931138/

https://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/air-pollution-may-contribute-diabetes-particularly-among-african-americans-study

https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/air-pollution-contributes-significantly-to-diabetes-globally/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935119306140

https://drc.bmj.com/content/8/1/e000937

Air filtration is vital to a healthy building. The call for ventilation will require more filtration to clean the air before flooding the building with fresh air. Remember fresh air is not always and clean air. Who knew that air pollution has such strong links to diabetes?

Infection control programs need to be layered. Surface hygiene, hand hygiene and a good hand hygiene program go a long way in protecting your family, clients, staff and public. Facility managers need to add infection control to their check list of things to do. Focus on persistent cleaning technologies and layer your program. If you need help give us a call.