Diseases associated with the environment, such as cholera and malaria, may be minimized by placing disaster relief and refugee camps, from an environmental standpoint, in good locations. To do so, however, is often difficult due to political, military and economic constraints within host countries. Once these camps are established there often are limited resources to provide fundamental services, such as adequate water supplies or vector control services. In order to locate new camps and to assess environmental services in existing camps to prioritize them, a weighted value tree model was developed, using a technique of decision analysis. After being translated into a camp survey form, the tree was tested in existing refugee camps of Thailand. That form demonstrated the model's appropriateness in prioritizing environmental health services, at least for such camps in hot, moist climates.

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model geographic distribution functional assessment welfare refugee public health service disaster decision making environmental health Article Thailand tropic climate epidemiology siting