Using the toilet, cleaning up a child’s faeces, sweeping, cleaning dishes, preparing food and
bathing were all found to increase faecal indicator bacterial levels on hands. Geometric mean increases in
colony forming units per two hands ranged from 50 (cleaning dishes) to 6310 (food preparation). Multivariate
modelling of hand faecal indicator bacteria as a function of activities recently performed shows that
food handling, exiting the household premises and longer time since last handwashing with soap are
positively associated with bacterial levels on hands, while bathing is negatively associated. Genetic markers
of Bacteroidales, enterovirus and pathogenic E. coli were each detected on a subset of mothers’ hands.