Installing alcohol-based hand sanitizer dispensers in classrooms does not lead to reductions in the rate of school absences in children, according to a study published in this week’s PLOS Medicine by researchers from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

The researchers conducted a cluster randomized trial that that randomly assigned 68 city primary schools in New Zealand to the intervention or control group and measured the rate of school absence in children (aged 5­–11 years) attending the participating schools.