Indicator Level
Indicator Wording
Indicator Purpose
How to Collect and Analyse the Required Data
Determine the indicator value using the following steps:
1) Clarify within your team what “thermal comfort” means: For this indicator, thermal comfort includes acceptable temperature during the day and at night, and dryness inside the shelter (no problematic dampness or leaks), assessed over the last 7 days/nights using the questions in Step 4.
2) Specify when and where you will measure:
- Timing: measure during the relevant risk season (cold season and/or hot season), or soon after winterisation / heat-mitigation support when conditions are present. Measuring “thermal comfort” outside the season can mislead.
- Reference period for answers: use the last 7 days (and nights) to reduce recall bias and avoid “today-only” responses.
- Location: define the geographic area(s) where households who received thermal-comfort–related assistance live (and keep the same boundaries across measurement rounds).
3) Decide on the respondents: The preferred respondent is an adult household member who spends the most time in the shelter. This may vary by context but will often include women and/or older people. Since many humanitarian surveys are conducted with the head of household, enumerators should first ask the main survey respondent:
- who in the household spends the most time in the shelter; and
- whether that person is available and willing to answer a few questions.
If the preferred respondent is not available, the enumerator should ask the questions to the main survey respondent (e.g. the head of household) and note that the preferred respondent was not interviewed.
4) Conduct interviews with a representative sample of beneficiary households: For each selected household, first check whether the adult household member who spends the most time in the shelter is available and willing to answer a few questions. If yes, interview this person, record the respondent’s gender and age group, and then ask the three core questions below. If not, interview the main survey respondent (e.g. the head of household) and note that the preferred respondent was not interviewed.
RECOMMENDED SURVEY QUESTIONS (Q) AND POSSIBLE ANSWERS
Q1 (Daytime temperature comfort): “In the last 7 days, how acceptable was the temperature inside your shelter during the day? Please consider also what is realistically possible in this context.”
Q2 (Nighttime temperature comfort): “In the last 7 nights, how acceptable was the temperature inside your shelter during the night? Please consider again what is realistically possible in this context.”
Q3 (Dryness): “In the last 7 days, how acceptable were dryness conditions inside your shelter (for example no leaking, dampness, or flooding)?”
Response options for all three questions:
1) Not acceptable (serious problems affecting daily life or sleep)
2) Mostly not acceptable (important problems)
3) Mostly acceptable (some problems, but generally OK)
4) Fully acceptable (no major problems)
5) To calculate the indicator value:
- count the number of respondents who answered “mostly acceptable” or “fully acceptable” to all three questions
- divide it by the total number of surveyed households
- multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage
Disaggregate by
The data can be disaggregated by gender, age group, type of shelter, location, and respondent type (preferred vs. main survey respondent).
Important Comments
1) This is one of DG ECHO’s Key Outcome Indicators. As of December 2025, ECHO has not released guidance on how to measure this indicator. The guidance above is IndiKit’s suggestion for how you can determine the indicator value. We welcome your feedback on how we can improve it further. If ECHO releases its own guidance, please follow it and inform IndiKit so we can update this site accordingly.
2) Although the indicator refers to “thermal comfort”, in humanitarian shelter practice comfort depends on both temperature and moisture. Dampness, leaks, or flooding can make shelters feel colder or hotter and increase health risks; therefore, dryness is included to reflect whether shelters provide acceptable living conditions in practice.
3) Thermal comfort should be measured during the relevant cold or hot season. Measurements taken outside the risk season may underestimate problems and lead to misleading conclusions.
4) Thermal comfort can differ significantly within a household depending on age, gender, health status, and time spent inside the shelter. The methodology therefore prioritises interviewing the adult household member who spends the most time in the shelter, as this person is more likely to experience and observe temperature and dampness conditions throughout the day and night. This approach helps reduce bias that can occur when interviews are conducted only with household heads who may spend less time indoors.
5) To capture intra-household differences without additional interviews, consider asking additional question: “Is anyone in your household currently experiencing unacceptable cold, heat, or dampness in the shelter (for example young children, older people, pregnant women, or people with chronic illness)?” The response options should include: Yes / No / Don’t know. If “Yes”, optionally record the category – e.g. “children”, “older people”, etc. (do not record names). Use this information for programming – not to determine the value of this indicator.
6) The indicator is perception-based (by design, to stay feasible). Where possible, triangulate with simple technical / observation checks (e.g., whether key shelter elements were completed, whether major hazards remain), but keep scoring rules simple.
7) Since the indicator value is influenced also by the settlement conditions, ensure your sampling frame includes beneficiaries across different areas and not only those easiest to reach (to avoid bias).
8) Changes in reported thermal comfort may reflect external contextual factors such as weather severity, fuel or energy availability, overcrowding, or population movements, and should not be interpreted as resulting solely from the assistance provided.
9) The methodology proposed above assumes that the assistance provided can help households achieve acceptable indoor conditions (i.e., not unacceptably cold or hot and sufficiently dry). If external constraints (e.g., climate severity, the shelter type, or funding levels) mean that achieving acceptable conditions is not realistic and the intervention can only improve the situation (e.g., people feel less cold), you may need to use a different measurement approach. In that case, the questions should focus on perceived change (e.g., whether the assistance helped the household feel less cold or less hot compared to before). If you use an improvement-based approach, the indicator wording should be changed accordingly, and the change in methodology should be clearly documented as results will not be directly comparable with the “acceptable conditions” measure.