Objective To investigate hygiene behaviors in rural households of Tianjin, and to explore possible influencing factors.

Methods In 2019, the multi-stage random sampling method was used to select 60 sample villages and 300 rural households in three typical rural areas of Tianjin. A cross-sectional survey was conducted regarding the basic situation of rural environmental sanitation, basic household conditions, and household hygiene behaviors. The multi-level logistic regression model was used to analyze the effects of rural environmental sanitation conditions and demographic economics on household hygiene behavior indicators.

Results The presence or absence of village-organized toilet modification significantly influenced the household use of hygiene toilet (P < 0.05). The proportion of households drinking packaging water was lower in the villages with intermittent water supply than in the villages with continuous water supply (P < 0.05). The use of hygiene toilets and the habit of drinking of rural households were clustered at the village level (P < 0.05).

Conclusion Organized toilet modification in the village can promote the use of hygiene toilets by villagers. Intermittent water supply may cause changes in household drinking behaviors. Sufficient attention needs to be paid to ensuring environmental sanitation conditions related to rural household hygiene behaviors. The hierarchical structure model should be adopted when analyzing the data with a village-household nesting structure.