Development and Application of a Cumulative Outage Exposure Index to Assess Sociodemographic Disparities Across United States Counties

Development and Application of a Cumulative Outage Exposure Index to Assess Sociodemographic Disparities Across United States Counties | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Development and Application of a Cumulative Outage Exposure Index to Assess Sociodemographic Disparities Across United States Counties William Arent This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8644042/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Electric power outages significantly impact household physical, mental, and economic wellbeing. When outages repeatedly occur in the same communities over time, they create cumulative exposure burdens that can compound existing detriments. While previous studies have examined individual outage events at the local and regional level, few have quantified the cumulative temporal burden of repeated electricity disruptions at a national scale. Alongside this, few studies have examined how these burdens align with sociodemographic disadvantage. This study develops and applies a novel Cumulative Outage Exposure Index (COEI) using five years (2018–2022) of county-level power outage data from over 3,000 United States counties. The Cumulative Outage Exposure Index (COEI) sums the number of customers reported without power in each 15-minute interval, normalizes this total by the customer base, and averages the result across 60 months to quantify recurring electricity service disruption. Descriptive mapping and cluster analysis of the COEI reveals significant geographic concentration of outage exposure, as well as co-location with sociodemographic disadvantage. Spatial lag models then demonstrate that counties with higher proportions of non-white, elderly, and disabled residents experience significantly greater cumulative outage exposure, even after controlling for spatial autocorrelation. These findings provide national-scale evidence that cumulative electricity outage burdens are geographically concentrated and disproportionately borne by sociodemographically vulnerable communities, highlighting environmental justice concerns as outage frequency continues to increase across the United States. Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences Scientific community and society/Geography Social science/Geography Outage energy justice energy insecurity social vulnerability Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8644042","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":596512858,"identity":"c98d17c8-da40-47ec-bd3a-abfa92318412","order_by":0,"name":"William Arent","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA7ElEQVRIie3OsQrCMBCA4SuBuES6xsH6ChGhi4OvYhddnMXBoS51CboKio/hakOhLqEvkKUiOOsiDioaQcWhraND/ukO7iMBMJn+MYRGYfu9DQBKvh5wHrH8DwklAxIXEXiQ9yyCHwjbPEg6XIE9j+LdcXnxeG2cwqEfZZNIfyxWQJNOl4kV8zgmzJol2cR9EqwAJHGpJmtMAJWDInJTUJP2iYqFfqWUomsR8QIFTBJMha8JMGTlkNaTTBSpS+xSGTcaHPeY4Ek3k1SmkdieT8pxJNrTwdCpcrTZpud+M5O8Il9bWHhvMplMptzusAxbwVrnHW8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Tufts University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"William","middleName":"","lastName":"Arent","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-01-20 02:38:11","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8644042/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8644042/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":105030581,"identity":"dd5cf063-92a3-4d56-b864-d42677f5c868","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-20 06:25:38","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":963181,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"ArentCOEISciRepJan19.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8644042/v1_covered_279bc56e-9a6e-47b3-8191-accc1e637a99.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Development and Application of a Cumulative Outage Exposure Index to Assess Sociodemographic Disparities Across United States Counties","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Outage, energy justice, energy insecurity, social vulnerability","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8644042/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8644042/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eElectric power outages significantly impact household physical, mental, and economic wellbeing. When outages repeatedly occur in the same communities over time, they create cumulative exposure burdens that can compound existing detriments. While previous studies have examined individual outage events at the local and regional level, few have quantified the cumulative temporal burden of repeated electricity disruptions at a national scale. Alongside this, few studies have examined how these burdens align with sociodemographic disadvantage. This study develops and applies a novel Cumulative Outage Exposure Index (COEI) using five years (2018\u0026ndash;2022) of county-level power outage data from over 3,000 United States counties. The Cumulative Outage Exposure Index (COEI) sums the number of customers reported without power in each 15-minute interval, normalizes this total by the customer base, and averages the result across 60 months to quantify recurring electricity service disruption. Descriptive mapping and cluster analysis of the COEI reveals significant geographic concentration of outage exposure, as well as co-location with sociodemographic disadvantage. Spatial lag models then demonstrate that counties with higher proportions of non-white, elderly, and disabled residents experience significantly greater cumulative outage exposure, even after controlling for spatial autocorrelation. 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