Introduction: Hospitals should be safe and remain functional in emergencies and disasters as it is mentioned in the Sendai Framework. Proper selection of a hospital location has a direct effect on survival of affected population in disasters as well as cost and benefit of the hospital in non-emergency situation. Different studies applied different criteria for Hospital Site Selection (HSS). The present study through a systematic review aimed to find out a categorized criteria list that have been used for (HSS) in the literature.

Methods: In accordance with the PRISMA statement, “PubMed”, “ScienceDirect”, “Google Scholar”, and “Scopus” were searched up to end of 2015. All English Articles that were published in peer-reviewed journals and had discussed site selection criteria for hospitals were included. Out of 41 articles, 15 met the inclusion criteria in which 39 general criteria for HSS were applied. These criteria were categorized in six main groups including cost, demand, environmental, administrative, disaster risk, and “other” concerns through a focus group discussion.

Results: Accordingly, the application percentage of cost, demand, environmental, administrative, disaster risk, and “other” concerns in the articles was 100, 93.3, 53.3, 33.3, 20.0, and 13.3 respectively. The least devoted attention was to disaster risk issues.

Discussion: Few researchers applied risk related criteria for HSS. Further consideration of “risk of hazards” and “burden of diseases” in comprehensive studies, is recommended for HSS to guide the decision makers for building more resilient hospitals. Keywords   Hospital, Site selection, Systematic review, Disaster risk