Multi-criteria healthcare waste disposal location selection based on Fermatean fuzzy WASPAS method

Abstract

Medical services inevitably generate healthcare waste (HCW) that may become hazardous to healthcare staffs, patients, the population, and the atmosphere. In most of the developing countries, HCW disposal management has become one of the fastest-growing challenges for urban municipalities and healthcare providers. Determining the location for HCW disposal centers is a relatively complex process due to the involvement of various alternatives, criteria, and strict government guidelines about the disposal of HCW. The objective of the paper is to introduce the WASPAS (weighted aggregated sum product assessment) method with Fermatean fuzzy sets (FFSs) for the HCW disposal location selection problem. This method combines the score function, entropy measure, and classical WASPAS approach within FFSs context. Next, a combined procedure using entropy and score function is proposed to estimate the criteria weights. To do this, a novel score function with its desirable properties and some entropy measures are introduced under the FFSs context. Further, an illustrative case study of the HCW disposal location selection problem on FFSs is established, which evidences the practicality and efficacy of the developed approach. Comparative discussion and sensitivity analysis are made to monitor the permanence of the introduced framework. The final results approve that the proposed methodology can effectively handle the ambiguity and inaccuracy in the decision-making procedure of HCW disposal location selection.