UW study finds dirty keyboards

You may be leaving the library with more than just books, according to a UW study. A group of students from the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences tested for and found contaminants on keyboards in two of the computer labs on campus.

Seven students tested the keyboards on the first floor of Odegaard Undergraduate Library and the first floor of Mary Gates Hall for microbial contaminants, specifically methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a type of bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics, and fecal coliforms, bacteria that suggest the presence of fecal matter.

“A lot of students get sick, and they don’t know why,” said Danny Ormeni, one of the students involved in the experiment.

“We started this project because computer keyboards have been suspected as a reservoir of pathogens in many public places, like hospitals and schools,” said Gwy-Am Shin, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences.

The students involved in the study used a simple swabbing method to collect microorganisms from the computer keyboards in two libraries to determine the level of fecal coliforms and various Staphylococcus species, Shin said.

While the students didn’t find any MRSA, they did find staph and fecal coliforms. Staph is an opportunistic pathogen, meaning that contact with the microorganisms through an open cut can lead to infection.

Although MRSA was not detected, it could still be on the keyboards, Shin said. The low sensitivity of their testing could have missed MRSA. The sampling method was simple, so recovery of bacteria was not as efficient. Less than 0.1 percent of all microorganisms on the computer keyboards could be collected.

“An interesting thing in our study is that the level of fecal coliforms was unusually high despite the low sensitivity of our method,” said Shin. “Although fecal coliforms are not pathogens themselves, their presence indicates a possible presence of human pathogens, and the high level of fecal coliforms increases the likelihood of the presence of human pathogens on the computer keyboards.”

The group tested three sets of five computers from each lab in a random sampling. Altogether, 30 computer keyboards were tested.

“We picked the first floor of Odegaard because so many students use it,” said Stephanie Wong, another student involved in the experiment.

Odegaard had a higher presence of fecal coliforms than Mary Gates. The students said the most probable reason for this is that hand sanitizer is readily available at Mary Gates, but there isn’t any at Odegaard.

“Disinfectant does help because people will use it,” Ormeni said.

Ormeni said the University should look into having more sanitizing products available near keyboards.

“We interviewed a few of the librarians,” Wong said. “They don’t clean the keyboards on a regular basis.”

Wong said the library staff stores cleaning materials behind the counter and will give them to students who ask. However, no signs indicate that those materials are available to students, she said.

Many UW students said they are not surprised the keyboards are dirty.

“Everybody’s using the keyboards, so I kind of expect they will be dirty,” said Katie Parks, who is enrolled in an English language program at the UW. “I thought they cleaned them a couple of times a year.”

It’s not uncommon to see students eating at computers, but some are wary.

“There’s no way I’d eat anything when I’m using one [a keyboard]” junior Kemp Nicklin said. “Just looking at this one I can see hair, dirt, food, chunks of paper. I wouldn’t say it’s terribly surprising.”

“I’ve heard typical keyboards are dirtier than toilets,” he added.

Odegaard and Mary Gates were chosen because of the high traffic at these locations; however, the results of the experiment may not be applicable to the rest of the campus.

“Their representativeness for all the other computer labs at the UW might be questionable,” Shin said.