RAPID: Operationalizing the Capabilities Approach in the Context of Disaster Resilience: Measuring the Social Burden of Infrastructure Disruptions

该快速反应研究（Rapid）项目通过对受2021年2月冬季风暴影响的德克萨斯州居民进行住宅调查，评估停电和相关基础设施中断（例如水和交通）对家庭的影响。在风暴期间，数百万没有电和水的家庭努力满足他们的基本需求。事实证明，没有电和水，烹饪食物、获取清洁水和取暖都很困难。把重点放在这些中断的家庭服务和完成重要家庭任务所需的额外努力上，使研究能够了解关键基础设施如何促进满足家庭的基本需要。此外，通过检查满足这些需求和在中断期间维持家庭能力所需的额外“成本”（例如，花费的额外时间和金钱），该项目有助于制定一个衡量基础设施中断的社会负担的指标。这一衡量基础设施中断的社会影响的指标可以通过捕捉目前未测量的基础设施故障后果，为基础设施规划和投资决策提供信息。本研究旨在通过调查基础设施中断对家庭的社会影响，推进能力方法（CA）框架，以理解人类发展和福祉。主要目标是实证检验德克萨斯州最近的停电（以及相关的基础设施中断）对家庭基本能力（即健康和安全感）的影响。研究小组对德克萨斯州家庭进行了一项具有代表性的停电调查，以确定所经历的能力损失的类型和强度，并检查先前停电经验在中介影响中的作用。德克萨斯州的事件尤为明显，因为受影响的人口中有很大一部分在最近的记忆中没有经历过严重的停电。通过比较不同停电经验的人的反应，本研究阐明了经验在停电影响中的中介作用，并使研究人员能够更准确地衡量被冬季风暴Uri措手不及的家庭的真正中断负担。这项研究超越了之前的工作，通过分析停电的影响，获得了关键基础设施服务和基本能力之间联系的细粒度数据，因为停电会导致级联基础设施系统中断（即水、食物等）。这项研究描绘了家庭基础设施服务中断（即照明、制冷）与维持基本需求（即保暖、吃饭）的关键日常家庭活动中断之间的联系，这些活动可能限制实现对人类福祉至关重要的关键能力和功能（即健康和感到安全）。这项工作支持了一种新的增强能力方法框架，该框架可用于了解基础设施中断对家庭的社会影响，以及家庭适应满足基本需求的方式。其次，收集到的数据被用来制定一个量化基础设施中断给家庭带来的社会负担的指标，该指标是根据家庭在基础设施中断期间满足基本需求所需的额外时间和成本来估计的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project assesses the impacts of power outages and associated infrastructure disruptions (e.g., water and transportation) on households by conducting a residential survey in Texas of people impacted by the February 2021 Winter Storm. During the storm, millions of households without power and water struggled to meet their basic needs. Cooking food, accessing clean water, and staying warm proved difficult without electricity and water. Focusing on these interrupted household services and the additional effort necessary to complete important household tasks enables research to understand how critical infrastructure facilitates the achievement of basic household needs. Moreover, through the examination of the additional ‘costs’ (e.g., extra time and money spent) required to meet these needs and maintain household capabilities during disruptions, the project contributes to developing a metric that captures the social burden of infrastructure disruptions. This metric of the social impacts of infrastructure disruptions can inform infrastructure planning and investment decisions by capturing currently unmeasured consequences of infrastructure failure. This research seeks to advance the Capabilities Approach (CA) framework for understanding human development and well-being by investigating the social impacts of infrastructure disruptions on households. The primary objective is to empirically examine the impacts of the recent power outages (and associated infrastructure disruptions) in Texas on household basic capabilities (i.e., being healthy and feeling safe). The research team conducts a representative, outage-wide survey of Texan households to identify the type and intensity of capability losses experienced, and examines the role of prior outage experience in mediating impacts. The event in Texas is particularly distinct because a significant portion of the population impacted has not experienced significant outages in recent memory. By comparing the responses of people with varying levels of prior outage experience, this research elucidates the role of experience in mediating outage impacts, and enables the researchers to more accurately measure the true burden of disruptions on households caught off-guard by Winter Storm Uri. This research goes beyond prior work by obtaining granular data on the links between critical infrastructure services and basic capabilities by analyzing the impacts of power outages as they cause cascading infrastructure system disruptions (i.e., water, food, etc.). The research maps the linkages between the disruption of household infrastructure services (i.e., lighting, refrigeration) and the disruption of day-to-day household activities critical for maintaining basic needs (i.e., keeping warm, eating) that may limit the achievement of critical capabilities and functions important for human well-being (i.e., being healthy and felling safe). This work supports a novel and augmented Capabilities Approach framework that can be used to understand the social impacts of infrastructure disruptions on households as well as the ways in which households adapt to meet basic needs. Second, the data collected are used to develop a metric that quantifies the social burden of infrastructure disruptions on households, which is estimated according to the extra time and costs required of households to fulfill basic needs during infrastructure outages.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.