The ever increasing number of natural hazards is affecting health and stretching healthcare facilities to their limits. Many healthcare facilities could not perform as were expected due to physical damage and inappropriate social performance. This themed issue aims to support decision makers, engineers and planners (in less exposed countries and countries with financial, awareness and expertise constraints but are at high risk) to identify the vulnerability of their existing facilities and ensure that new facilities are resilient enough to cope with the multiple adversities they face. The key messages it provides are existing healthcare facilities need to conduct resilience assessment to identify room for improvement; this assessment needs to inform planning and improvements.