The Burrow
Feb 16, 2024
Since COVID-19 highlighted the ease of germs spreading, it’s fair to say that around the world, there’s been an increase in awareness of hygiene, with people making more of an effort with cleanliness and sanitation.
Ultimately, in many cases, poor hygiene can eventually lead to more serious issues; which is why it’s so important to not only take good care of your health, but to invest in private health insurance too, should you need inpatient hospital treatment for any unanticipated issues.
To find the most hygiene-conscious states and cities across the USA, Canada, and Australia, we looked to see monthly searches for key items, including ‘deodorant’, ‘dental floss’, ‘hand wash’ and more, and then worked this out relative to the population.
Here’s what we found.
With the second highest population on our list, at 5.1 million people, Sydney is officially Australia’s most hygienic city. The city saw the highest searches for all products across our list, including 2,900 monthly searches for ‘deodorant’, 2,400 searches for ‘body scrub’, and 1,600 searches for ‘face cleanser’.
Adelaide came in second place, because whilst search volumes are smaller, so’s the population. Brisbane came in third, with 1,300 searches for ‘deodorant’ and 390 searches for ‘hair care’, with Melbourne and Perth coming in fourth and fifth place respectively.
Despite having the largest population out of the five cities, Melbourne didn’t come top for any searches, except for ‘hand wash’, tying with Sydney at 1,600 monthly searches for it.
With a population of 2,936,378, Kansas’ monthly searches may not be the highest, but they are high relative to the number of people living there.
The most searches by far were for ‘deodorant’, at 9,900 a month, followed by ‘body scrub’ at 320, then ‘hand wash’ and ‘face cleanser’ at 170 searches each. ‘Sanitary products’ saw the least number of searches at 10 a month; although that’s on par with Nebraska, which ranks second most hygienic.
Nebraska has an even smaller population, but citizens are clearly quite hygiene-conscious. Texas, New York and California rank third, fourth and fifth respectively. Texas and California tie for the most monthly searches for ‘deodorant’, at 22,200 a month, almost double New York’s, at 12,100.
In fact, California saw the most search volume for all products analysed, which makes sense as with a population of 38,915,693, it’s the most populous on our list.
Finally, if we look at Canada, then we can see that Calgary is officially the most hygienic city in the country, with the most number of searches for key products relative to its 1,640,000-strong population.
Winnipeg came in second place, followed by Toronto, Hamilton, and Edmonton, whereas Vancouver just missed out on the top 5.
With Toronto having a large population, searches were greater, with 1,900 monthly searches for ‘deodorant’, 480 for ‘dental floss’, and 590 for ‘face cleanser’.
Again, the least searches across the board were for ‘sanitary products’, with every city other than Toronto making just 10 searches a month.
Hannah Norton, spokesperson for Compare the Market states: “Taking care of your own personal hygiene not only helps to keep you healthy, but the wider population too. Carrying sanitiser and avoiding touching your face before washing your hands can help prevent you from picking up germs while you’re out and about.
“However, there are other personal hygiene aspects that can deteriorate over time if you don’t take care of them. For instance, brushing and flossing your teeth twice a day can help to avoid costly dental bills in the future; so, forming a selfcare routine that you can stick to each day will help you continue to be the happiest, healthiest version of yourself.
“Of course, bad hygiene habits can also lead to advanced health conditions, such as infection or disease, both of which can have a drastic impact on the recovery and treatment of medical conditions. In these cases, private health insurance can be useful in providing financial support if you are admitted to hospital as an inpatient, depending on the treatment you require. That way you can get the care require without worrying about the cost or long wait times.”
We compare a range of providers to help Australians search for cover that suits their needs – whether you’re looking for private hospital cover or extras cover, which includes things like dental care, optical and eye therapy, physiotherapy and much more.
Sources:
Population data: World Population Review
Methodology:
Keyword tool was used to source the average Google searches for hygiene-related keywords for each US state, and across key cities in Australia and Canada.
All data correct as of 26.01.2024.