Association of social vulnerability factors with power outage burden in Washington state: 2018-2021.

ABSTRACT: Major power outages have risen over the last two decades, largely due to more extreme weather conditions. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the distribution of power outages and its relationship to social vulnerability and co-occurring hazards. We examined the associations between localized outages and social vulnerability factors (demographic characteristics), controlling for environmental factors (weather), in Washington State between 2018-2021. We additionally analyzed the validity of PowerOutage.us data compared to federal datasets. The population included 27 counties served by 14 electric utilities. We developed a continuous measure of daily outage burden using PowerOutage.us data and operationalized social vulnerability using four factors: poverty level, unemployment, disabili

SUBMITTER: Richards CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11373849 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature