Modeling the health of refugee camps: An agent-based computational approach

This paper reports the construction of an agent-based model that has been used to study humanitarian assistance policies executed by governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in a synthetic environment. We create intelligent agents representing institutions, organizations, individuals, infrastructure, and governments. The resulting interactions and emergent behaviors are analyzed using a central composite design of experiments with five factors. The results indicate that the introduction of actions on NGOs leads to a change in the peripheral/regional environment and refugee wellbeing. This is due to the changes produced in refugees' perception of basic needs, social needs, and security, as well as the fluctuations in the supply of medical and personnel resources.