Casey and Colleagues Publishes New Research in Environmental Epidemiology
Posted: 6/26/2025 (CSDE Research)
In recent years, power outages have become more common oftentimes because of extreme weather. Extreme heat, wind, and precipitation have become more frequent and intense because of climate change. This combined with aging electrical grid components that have not been upgraded to withstand severe weather events caused US electrical customers to experience power outages for an average of 8 hours in 2020. This exposes vulnerable people to health risks, for example, those who use electricity-dependent medical equipment. Research on this health risk has been limited due to lack of exposure data, but new national power outage data has become available since 2020. Joan Casey and colleagues published a research article in Environmental Epidemiology titled, “Assessing bias in measuring power outage exposure with simulations,” discussing these new data and how best to estimate exposure to power outages for health research. To learn about Dr. Casey and her colleagues’ research, visit the link to read the full research article.