How has improved cleanliness standards impacted public health?
Today, we may take cleaning for granted but it plays a vital role in health. We can see that by looking at the drop in the infectious disease mortality rates in the 19th century. For example, of the top 10 leading reasons for death, infectious disease was 633% higher in 1900 vs 1997 in the US. Advances in medicine like penicillin and vaccines played a critical role in the treatment of incurable diseases and disease eradication (or disease elimination) respectively, but sanitation and hygiene improvements in the early 1900s were the primary reason for the rapid decline in deaths by preventing infectious disease.
Figure 1, below, illustrates this radical decline, with infectious disease mortality dropping from 797 per 100,000 people in the early 1900s, to 283 per 100,000 people in 1937 in the US (or a 2.8% decrease per year).
