Field Hygiene and Sanitation
How groups living rough stop disease before it starts: safe water, food handling, latrines and waste, and the insects, ticks and rodents that carry illness.
Source: U.S. Army (copy from archive.org). Not endorsed by the U.S. Army or the U.S. Government.
Last checked against the source 2 October 2026
How to use this document
Who it's for: groups camping, living rough or running a camp for days or weeks without running water or toilets.
How to read it: Chapter 3, Personal hygiene, ends with a short list of rules for avoiding illness in the field. Chapters 4 to 6 cover field water supply, food sanitation and waste disposal, from the cat-hole to the straddle trench latrine. Chapters 7 to 16 deal with insects, ticks, venomous animals, rodents and other carriers of disease one at a time, and Chapter 17 covers heat and cold. Read the pest chapters for the methods, not the chemicals.
Read alongside: Personal Hygiene During an Emergency · Treating Water in the Backcountry
What's in it
- Introduction
- Communicable diseases
- Personal hygiene
- Field water supply
- Food sanitation
- Waste disposal
- Mosquito-borne diseases and their control
- Louse-borne diseases and their control
- Fly-borne diseases and their control
- Flea-borne diseases and their control
- Tick- and mite-borne disease and their control
- Miscellaneous insects and insect-borne diseases
- Venomous animals and their control
- Rodent-borne diseases and their control
- Leeches and their control
- Miscellaneous diseases and their control
- Health problems related to extreme temperatures
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