Exploring the link between energy security and subjective well-being: a study of 22 nations

Abstract

Background: Energy has long been recognized as foundational for well-being, and recent work, has documented a link between access to energy services and health. In this analysis, we ask how worries about the energy systemin the form of access, cost, reliability, and sustainability-influence self-rated health. Results: Using data from 22 nations and some 30,000 respondents, we find that worries about energy security reduce self-rated health. Partial proportional odds models suggest that this effect varies across thresholds of selfrated health, wherein individuals highly worried about energy security are significantly less likely to report "Very Good" self-rated health. Conclusions: Worries about energy security reduce subjective well-being, suggesting another avenue through which energy relates to human health.

Energy poverty and subjective well-being in China: New evidence from the China Family Panel Studies

“…Although a small body of extant research on the EP-SWB linkage provides evidence of EP's detrimental effect on SWB, this corpus focuses almost exclusively on developed nations; most notably, Europe (Awaworyi Biermann, 2016;Mayer & Smith, 2019;Rodriguez-Alvarez et al, 2019;Thomson et al, 2017;Welsch & Biermann, 2017). For example, Biermann (2016), using 1984 Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) data, documents a significantly negative EP effect that Welsch and Biermann (2017) and Mayer and Smith (2019)…”

Fossil fuel dependence and energy insecurity

“…Energy insecurity is a mediating mechanism between socio-economic status and health outcomes-that is, low-socio-economic status households often struggle to attain needed energy services, which in turn has negative health consequences [13]. Using French data, [17] and [18] find that energy insecurity is associated with lower self-rated health, these findings were echoed by [19]. Using a sample from a low-income neighborhood in a major metropolitan region of the U.S., [16] find that energy insecurity is associated with lower self-rated health, sleep problems, depression, and asthma.…”

“…Also studying a metropolitan area in the U.S., [15] connect energy insecurity problem behaviors in children. Several studies have connected issues like lack of thermal comfort, drafty and cold buildings, and potential intermittency to various indicators of well-being, such as selfrated health [12,16,17,19], asthma, depression and sleep problems [16], increased youth hospitalizations [15] and excess mortality during cold months [27].…”

“…At the household level, households are energy secure if they have reliable access to adequate energy services to provide for thermal comfort, reading light, and other needs [13,14]. Importantly, household energy insecurity has been connected to a variety of negative health outcomes [15][16][17][18][19].…”

Localized energy burden, concentrated disadvantage, and the feminization of energy poverty

“…Energy poverty magnifies the material, health, educational, and social stressors of poverty and creates barriers for participation in society (Bouzarovski, 2018). Research on energy burden, which is a measure of energy poverty that describes the percentage of household income spent on utility expenditure, such as bills for electricity, gas, and water, shows compounding negative effects on the mental and physical health of vulnerable populations (Herna ´ndez, 2013;Mayer and Smith, 2019) that exacerbate pervasive social inequalities, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (Casta ´n Broto and Kirshner, 2020;Chen et al, 2020Chen et al, , 2021Graff and Carley, 2020;Memmott et al, 2021). Several factors contribute to the high energy burden; however, even after controlling for household size, age, heating source, and local weather, high electricity consumption remains a key component (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 2018).…”