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Household power outage experiences vary based on outage characteristics and the household's ability to cope with a disruption. While disaster management scholarship has produced methods to predict where the most significant impacts of a hazard may occur, these methods do not anticipate secondary effects, such as those from power outages. This research is necessary as the expected risks associated with power outages will increase in the United States due to climate change, increasing electricity demand, and aging infrastructure. To understand households' power outage experiences, we collected 896 surveys from three cities in the United States: Detroit, MI; Miami, FL; and Phoenix, AZ. Participants were recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) service to complete a survey. We hypothesized that racial/ethnic minority groups, specifically non-white households and lower-income households experienced more frequent and prolonged power outages. We also hypothesized that the same groups were more likely to have experienced more significant adverse effects, such as throwing away perishable food and not receiving assistance. We found that non-white households in Phoenix and Detroit were more likely to experience longer outages than white households; however, this association was not present in Miami and was not statistically significant in any city. Income was not a major factor in predicting food waste or assistance received during the longest self-reported outage. Further assessments in varying geographical contexts and more generalizable samples are necessary to increase understanding of how households experience power outages. 

Abstract As demand for electricity increases on an already strained electrical supply due to urbanization, population growth, and climate change, the likelihood of power outages will also increase. While researchers understand that the number of electrical grid disturbances is increasing, we do not adequately understand how increased power outages will affect a society that has become increasingly dependent on a reliable electric supply. This systematic review aims to understand how power outages have affected society, primarily through health impacts, and identify populations most vulnerable to power outages based on the conclusions from prior studies. Based on search parameters, 762 articles were initially identified, of which only 50 discussed the social impacts of power outages in North America. According to this literature, racial and ethnic minorities, especially Blacks or African Americans, those of lower socioeconomic status, children, older adults, and those living in rural areas experienced more significant impacts from previous power outages. Additionally, criminal activity increased during prolonged power outages with both pro-social and anti-social behaviors observed. Providing financial assistance or resources to replace spoiled goods can reduce crime. Future research on this topic must consider the financial effects of power outages, how power outage impacts seasonally vary, and the different durations of power outage impacts. 

Urban heat exposure is an increasing health risk among urban dwellers. Many cities are considering accommodating active mobility, especially walking and biking, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, promoting active mobility without proper planning and transportation infrastructure to combat extreme heat exposure may cause more heat-related morbidity and mortality, particularly in future with projected climate change. This study estimated the effectiveness of active trip heat exposure mitigation under built environment and travel behavior change. Simulations of the Phoenix metro region's 624,987 active trips were conducted using the activity-based travel model (ABM), mean radiant temperature (T MRT , net human radiation exposure), transportation network, and local climate zones. Two scenarios were designed to reduce traveler exposure: one that focuses on built environment change (making neighborhoods cooler) and the other on travel behavior (switching from shorter travel time but higher exposure routes to longer travel time but cooler routes) change. Travelers experienced T MRT heat exposure ranging from 29°C to 76°C (84°F to 168°F) without environmental or behavioral change. Active trip T MRT exposures were reduced by an average of 1.2–3.7°C when the built environment was changed from a hotter to cooler design. Behavioral changes cooled up to 10 times more trips than changes in built environment changes. The marginal benefit of cooling decreased as the number of cooled corridors transformed increased. When the most traveled 10 km of corridors were cooled, the marginal benefit affected over 1,000 trips/km. However, cooling all corridors results in marginal benefits as low as 1 trip/km. The results reveal that heavily traveled corridors should be prioritized with limited resources, and the best cooling results come from environment and travel behavior change together. The results show how to surgically invest in travel behavior and built environment change to most effectively protect active travelers. 

Extreme heat events induced by climate change present a growing risk to transit passenger comfort and health. To reduce exposure, agencies may consider changes to schedules that reduce headways on heavily trafficked bus routes serving vulnerable populations. This paper develops a schedule optimization model to minimize heat exposure and applies it to local bus services in Phoenix, Arizona, using agent-based simulation to inform travel demand and rider characteristics. Rerouting as little as 10% of a fleet is found to reduce network-wide exposure by as much as 35% when operating at maximum fleet capacity. Outcome improvements are notably characterized by diminishing returns, owing to skewed ridership and the inverse relationship between fleet size and passenger wait time. Access to spare vehicles can also ensure significant reductions in exposure, especially under the most extreme temperatures. Rerouting, therefore, presents a low-cost, adaptable resilience strategy to protect riders from extreme heat exposure. 

Exertional heat illness and stroke are serious concerns across youth and college sports programs. While some teams and governing bodies have adopted the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), few practitioners use measurements on the field of play; rather, they often rely on regionally modeled or estimated WBGT. However, urban development-induced heat and projected climate change increase exposure to heat. We examined WBGT levels between various athletic surfaces and regional weather stations under current and projected climates and in hot-humid and hot-dry weather regimes in the southwest U.S. in Tempe, Arizona. On-site sun-exposed WBGT data across five days (07:00–19:00 local time) in June (dry) and August (humid) were collected over five athletic surfaces: rubber, artificial turf, clay, grass, and asphalt. Weather station data were used to estimate regional WBGT (via the Liljegren model) and compared to on-site, observed WBGT. Finally, projected changes to WBGT were modeled under mid-century and late-century conditions. On-field WBGT observations were, on average, significantly higher than WBGT estimated from regional weather stations by 2.4 °C–2.5 °C, with mean on-field WBGT across both months of 28.5 ± 2.76 °C (versus 25.8 ± 3.21 °C regionally). However, between-athletic surface WBGT differences were largely insignificant. Significantly higher mean WBGTs occurred in August (30.1 ± 2.35 °C) versus June (26.9 ± 2.19 °C) across all venues; August conditions reached ‘limit activity’ or ‘cancellation’ thresholds for 6–8 h and 2–4 h of the day, respectively, for all sports venues. Climate projections show increased WBGTs across measurement locations, dependent on projection and period, with average August WBGT under the highest representative concentration pathway causing all-day activity cancellations. Practitioners are encouraged to use WBGT devices within the vicinity of the fields of play, yet should not rely on regional weather station estimations without corrections used. Heat concerns are expected to increase in the future, underlining the need for athlete monitoring, local cooling design strategies, and heat adaptation for safety.