Evolutionary thinking has underwritten the biological sciences since Darwin's time. More recently it has also had an impact on a range of other disciplines, including medicine. The field of 'evolutionary medicine' which views illnesses as adaptive responses to disease challenge, is now established through a burgeoning literature. However, it is now time to apply the insights from evolutionary approaches to public health and specifically to the design of programmes designed to modify hygiene behaviour.

Initial research conducted by Hygiene Centre staff in Ghana and India suggested that hygiene behaviour is motivated by fundamental, evolved motivations like disgust, status-seeking and nurturing. Researchers from the Hygiene Centre have since shown that people around the world feel disgusted by things that can make them ill, arguing that disgust has evolved as a mechanism to protect people from risks of disease. The study, published in Royal Society Biology Letters, involved one of the biggest web-based experiments ever conducted. The findings suggest that humans may be biologically programmed to avoid certain things such as faeces, wounds, rotting matter and bodily fluids.

Key Researchers:

V Curtis
R Aunger