Medical journals have suggested a connection between gastrointestinal illness and the quality of backcountry water ever since a report in 1976 of a group of hikers in Utah who developed giardiasis after drinking untreated water.

No real research has looked at the role hand hygiene may play -- until Upstate‘s Jana Shaw MD, MPH lead a study that was published in the January issue of the American Journal of Infection Control. Researchers at a popular trail head in the Adirondacks got 72 people on overnight camping trips to answer surveys and soak their dominant hands in bags of sterile saline – which were then analyzed in a laboratory.

Fecal bacteria was found on almost a third of the hikers‘ hands. The prevalence of fecal hand contamination was not much different between hikers entering the wilderness and those headed home, “which suggests that backpacking, alone, does not contribute to fecal hand contamination,” Shaw writes.

“The high prevalence is concerning because poor hygiene and fecal hand contamination have been linked to diarrheal illnesses among healthy subjects,” the study says. It concludes by suggesting that hikers and groups that teach wilderness skills emphasize proper hand hygiene.