This paper sheds light on the increasingly relevant problem of power outages and offers a view toward a socio-technically-based solution to protect vulnerable populations and improve health outcomes in the event of an outage.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the impacts of power outages on electricity-dependent populations by highlighting existing research on affected populations, describing the gaps in the field, and featuring two case studies in Puerto Rico and California that provide preliminary evidence for the potential uses of resilient power resources.