The association between Trust in Formal information and Understanding of influenza cause differed by gender but not age, with females showing a stronger association. Men tend to have poorer health knowledge than women [53] . We found that females were more likely to wash their hands than were males. Older respondents reported significantly greater trust in formal information, marginally-significantly better understanding of influenza cause and were more likely to wash their hands. This is consistent with other studies reflecting that preventive practice is enabled by knowledge of causes [49, 54] . However, increasing knowledge is not itself sufficient to always ensure preventive behaviour [55] . In this context, Understanding has an independent contribution to hand washing practice only.