Compound Signal
Outage Vulnerability
Power outage risk × Electricity-dependent medical population
50 counties are firing this signal at the elevated threshold (≥70/100) right now.
What it measures
The compound that no aggregator surfaces. Anchored on McBrien & Casey PLOS Medicine 2026 (8+ hour county outages associate with respiratory-hospitalization risk ratio 1.05) and Stone et al EST 2023 (heat × blackout doubles all-cause mortality, with Phoenix worst-case ~13,000 deaths). The realized 2021 Texas Uri event (246 official deaths versus 702–814 excess-mortality estimates) provides the empirical anchor.
Component breakdown
Each component is independently percentile-ranked against all US counties (0–100), then blended into the final signal score using the weights below.
| Component | Weight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Avg summer max temperature | 30% | NOAA / PRISM |
| EAGLE-I outage burden | 25% | DOE/ORNL EAGLE-I |
| emPOWER DME per 1k Medicare | 20% | HHS emPOWER |
| CHD + COPD blend (60/40 dominant) | 15% | CDC PLACES |
| Pre-1980 housing % (AC proxy) | 10% | Census ACS B25034 |
Evidence base
Outages convert heat from a chronic stressor into an acute mortality event. The DME leg captures populations whose powered medical equipment fails first when the grid does — ventilators, oxygen concentrators, motorized wheelchairs, IV pumps. The pre-1980 housing leg is a proxy for AC-absent or AC-marginal housing stock (built before central air became standard). Outage burden uses DOE/ORNL EAGLE-I 15-minute customer-out data validated in Brelsford et al, Scientific Data 2024.
McBrien & Casey, PLOS Medicine 2026
McBrien H, Casey JA, et al. Power outages and respiratory hospitalizations in US counties. PLOS Medicine. 2026.
Stone et al, EST 2023
Stone B Jr, Mallen E, Rajput M, et al. Compound climate and infrastructure events: how electrical grid failure alters heat-wave risk. Environmental Science & Technology. 2023;57(14):5630-5639.
Brelsford et al, Scientific Data 2024
Brelsford C, Tennille S, Myers A, et al. A dataset of recorded electricity outages by United States county 2014–2022. Scientific Data. 2024;11:271.
Coverage caveat
EAGLE-I covers 3,050 of 3,222 US counties; AK and some sparsely-served rural counties may have no signal at all.
Counties firing this signal
Top 50 counties at the elevated threshold (70/100) or above, sorted by score. Click any county for the full profile.
Related service line: cardiovascular. The platform tool exposes per-county service-line opportunity scores on Pro, Studio, and Enterprise tiers.
Methodology
Every Compound Signal on this platform is a versioned, weighted composite published transparently. See the full methodology — every weight, every threshold, every data source — on the methodology page.
View full methodology →