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Jan 1, 2014 · Abstract. Electricity fuels our existence. It powers water purification, waste, food, transportation and communication systems. Modern social life is impossible to imagine without it. This article...
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Abstract. Electricity fuels our existence. It powers water...
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May 9, 2023 · As these examples make clear, the effects of power outages are not uniform across society. Given the growing risks, it is important to understand how power outages may differentially impact various populations because of their unique social and household characteristics.
- Exposure Assessment
- Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
- All-Cause, Cardiovascular, Respiratory, and Renal Disease Healthcare Visits
- Gastrointestinal Illness
- Temperature-Related Illness
- Maternal and Neonatal Health
- Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Mortality
- Other Outcomes
Single, Large-Scale Power Outages
Nearly all studies evaluated single, large-scale power outages. While the definition of large scale varied from study to study, many met the US Department of Energy criteria: 50,000+ customers affected or an unplanned loss of 300 MW . Researchers assumed individuals experienced the outage if they lived or attended a healthcare facility in the region where the outage occurred. Most studies relied on pre-post outage temporal comparisons to draw inference [20•, 28, 39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47...
Multiple Power Outages
Seven studies evaluated multiple power outages [30••, 80••, 81••, 82, 83•, 84, 85 ], with three using outage frequency to characterize long-term exposure [82, 84, 85]. Others conducted longitudinal analyses. In South Africa, Gehringer and colleagues used a combination of government data, Facebook, and the local electric utility’s Twitter handle to track daily load shedding events (halted electricity distribution due to demand exceeding supply), including outage duration [30••]. Koroglu used s...
Twenty-three (48%) of studies included evaluated carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning [44, 45, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57,58,59,60,61,62, 64,65,66, 69,70,71,72, 76•, 77, 85, 86], a topic previously reviewed [87,88,89]. CO is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas, formed by incomplete combustion of carbon compounds. Because hemoglobin binds 250× more readily w...
In general, hospitals see fewer patients in the days leading up to storms , whereas more patients arrive during and after outages, often with respiratory, cardiovascular, or renal disease exacerbations [30, 40, 42, 46, 47, 53, 68, 80••, 81••]. In a comprehensive study, Dominianni et al. evaluated three major NYC outages (1999, 2003, 2006) and local...
Power outages can affect food refrigeration and water system supply and disinfection, potentially precipitating gastrointestinal illness as measured via poison control calls, prescription orders, and hospital admissions [30••, 45, 48, 78]. However, evidence is mixed, with several studies finding no increase in gastrointestinal illness after power o...
Power outages reduce individuals’ ability to control the indoor environment and may coincide with temperature extremes (both heatwaves and winter storms) resulting in illness [40, 42, 51, 53, 55, 68, 77, 80••] and disturbed sleep related to heat and cold exposure. Racial, socioeconomic, and age disparities exist in response to extreme temperature ...
Four studies assessed the relationship between power outages and maternal healthcare utilization, measures of fertility, and birthweight [73, 74, 79••, 83•]. Using monthly power outage data from 2010 to 2015 in India’s Maharashtra state, Koroglu and colleagues evaluated the relationship between SAIFI (system average interruption frequency index) an...
Qualitative studies identified worry, anxiety, stress, and reduced wellbeing among individuals exposed to power outages, generally tied to concerns about disrupted heating, food, water supplies, and healthcare [75, 82]. In the acute setting, healthcare seeking for mental health problems may actually decline, as was seen immediately after the 2003 N...
Three studies identified increased mortality after the 2003 Northeast Blackout in New York City (NYC), which affected 8 million NYC residents [39, 47, 80••]. Anderson and Bell found increased accidental (+ 122%) and non-accidental (+ 25%) mortality controlling for important environmental confounding variables such as temperature, air pollutants, da...
Several studies reported increases in healthcare visits for burns, lacerations, or other injuries [40, 42, 50, 68, 77], but attributing these events to power outages, rather than co-occurring exposures such as housing damage or motor vehicle crashes has been difficult. Further, two studies reported reduced prescription refills during power outages ...
- Joan A Casey, Mihoka Fukurai, Diana Hernández, Satchit Balsari, Satchit Balsari, Mathew V Kiang, Mat...
- 2020
This paper makes a modest contribution towards such a project. It focuses upon one network failure, the accidental loss of electrical power referred to as blackouts. It follows Charles Perrow’s (1984: 64) definition of accidents as unintended events that damage people, materials and systems.
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Jun 1, 2013 · It powers water purification, waste, food, transportation and communication systems. Modern social life is impossible to imagine without it. This article looks at what happens when the power goes off. It scrutinises the causes and consequences of accidental electrical power cuts.
Blackouts affect pumps, refrigeration, traffic lights, trains and cell phone towers. This has serious consequences for water, waste, food, transportation and communication systems. Modern social life is impossible to imagine without it. The following section examines some patterns that emerge when the power goes out.
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Apr 12, 2015 · The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, for instance, notes that “[f] unctionalists distinguish between “manifest consequences that are anticipated and latent consequences (or unintended consequences) that are not” (Johnson 1995, p. 117).
