User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in Kentucky

Public toilets in Kentucky, commonly called washrooms, are found at a rate of around two public toilets per 100,000 people. Public toilets were built to improve public sanitation. Others were built to fight disease. Public toilets were at the center of segregationism.

Public toilets
washroom is one of the most commonly used words for public toilet in the United States. Euphemisms are often used to avoid discussing the purpose of toilets. Words used include toilet, restroom, bathroom, lavatory and john.

A 2021 study found there were two public toilets per 100,000 people.

History
Louisville was one of the biggest cities by population in the United States in 1900. The Progressive Era saw reformists make a major push to address public hygiene. As part of this push, they sought to improve the toilet and sanitation in tenement housing in cities across the United States.

The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission was founded in 1909 to combat hookworm disease in the South. A survey was done of 11 southern states, which confirmed the presence of hookworm in 700 countries. A chief cause of spread of hookworm disease as open defecation in farmland. The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission program helped install public toilets and promote their use as part of their efforts to reduce hookworm disease. This was coupled with offering free exams and health treatment for hookworm disease.

There was a push back against building public toilets in Jim Crow states during the period between 1865 and 1960, because it meant that local governments were not just required to build two toilets, one for men and one for women, but four toilets, one each for men and women who were white and who were colored. Racially segregated public toilets were very common in the 1960s.

In the period between 2017 and 2018, there were several outbreaks of Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) in the United States that were driven largely by a result of homeless people and rough sleepers not having access to proper sanitary facilities, often a result of a lack of public toilets and resulting in open defecation. Early in this period after first emerging in San Diego and resulting in 20 deaths, the outbreak spread to Arizona, Utah and Kentucky.