Social distancing policies (SDPs) implemented throughout the United States in response to COVID-19 have led to spatial and temporal shifts in drinking water demand and, for water utilities, created sociotechnical challenges. During this unique period, many water utilities have been forced to operate outside of design conditions with reduced workforce and financial capacities. Few studies have examined how water utilities respond to a pandemic; such methods are even absent from many emergency response plans. Here, we documented how utilities have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a qualitative analysis of 30 interviews with 53 practitioners spanning 28 U.S. water utilities. Our aim was to, first, understand the challenges experienced by utilities and changes to operations (e.g., demand and deficit accounts) and, second, to document utilities' responses. Results showed that to maintain service continuity and implement SDPs, utilities had to overcome various challenges. These include supply chain issues, spatiotemporal changes in demand, and financial losses, and these challenges were largely dependent on the type of customers served (e.g., commercial or residential). Examples of utilities' responses include proactively ordering extra supplies and postponing capital projects. Although utilities' adaptations ensured the immediate provision of water services, their responses might have negative repercussions in the future (e.g., delayed projects contributing to aging infrastructure).
IMPORTANCE An accurate understanding of the distributional implications of public health policies is critical for ensuring equitable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and future public health threats. OBJECTIVE To identify and quantify the association of race/ethnicity-based, sex-based, and income-based inequities of state-specific lockdowns with 6 well-being dimensions in the United States. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This pooled, repeated cross-sectional study used data from 14 187 762 households who participated in phase 1 of the population-representative US 2020 Household Pulse Survey (HPS). Households were invited to participate by email, text message, and/or telephone as many as 3 times. Data were collected via an online questionnaire from April 23 to July 21, 2020, and participants lived in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. EXPOSURES Indicators of race/ethnicity, sex, and income and their intersections. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Unemployment; food insufficiency; mental health problems;no medical care received for health problems; default on last month's rent or mortgage; and class cancellations with no distance learning. Race/ethnicity, sex, income, and their intersections were used to measure distributional implications across historically marginalized populations; statespecific, time-varying population mobility was used to measure lockdown intensity. Logistic regression models with pooled repeated cross-sections were used to estimate risk of dichotomous outcomes by social group, adjusted for confounding variables.
This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as
In Santiago, Chile, the market conditions are seemingly excellent for the household adoption of photovoltaic (PV) technology, yet the uptake is negligible. To explore this paradox, the authors conducted a Delphi study to solicit the knowledge of a panel of Chilean PV experts. These efforts yielded 26 factors-both motivations and barriers-impacting the diffusion of PV in Santiago. Of the 26, experts were in consensus on the relative importance of 21. The literature suggests that diffusion of PV technologies is influenced by complex technical, economic, and social factors. Similarly, the experts saw influence from financial, environmental, and energy supply (e.g., electrical reliability) factors. They saw emergent barriers to adoption as being financial, technical, institutional, and knowledge factors. They considered the most important factors influencing adoption to be financial motivations (e.g., subsidies) and financial barriers (e.g., high upfront costs); they considered the least important factors to be environmental motivations (e.g., environmental stewardship) and technical barriers (e.g., concerns with roof mounting). With this knowledge, the authors develop an adoption framework for household PV that describes the interaction among the identified motivations and barriers. This framework informs policy recommendations for Santiago, Chile, and contributes to the body of literature exploring the interconnected systems of factors that influence civil infrastructure in general and PV adoption in particular.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.