The Independent and Synergistic Impacts of Power Outages and Floods on Hospital Admissions for Multiple Diseases

The authors examined the effects of power outages and floods in New York State from 2022-2018 and found that health risks increased regardless of whether events occurred separately or simultaneously. For outages and floods combined, immediate increases in risk were observed for chronic respiratory diseases; delayed effects were found on cardiovascular diseases and respiratory infections. The authors concluded that improvements to the power system could significantly reduce the burden on hospitals during and after floods.