An assessment of the relationship between daylight saving time, disruptions in sleep patterns and dwelling fires
File(s)
Author(s)
Kountouris, Yiannis
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Residential fires pose threats to living environments, generating costs to health and property. Understanding the roles of human behavior and social organization in determining fire occurrence is important for developing strategies to manage fire risk. This paper tests the impact of daylight saving time (DST) transitions on dwelling fire occurrence. DST transitions affect sleep patterns, impairing human cognitive and motor performance, potentially influencing the incidence of dwelling fires. Employing a regression discontinuity design with time as the running variable and using data from over 260,000 primary dwelling fires that took place in the U.K. over 8 years we do not find evidence suggesting that DST transitions impact on dwelling fire occurrence. For both the start of DST and end of DST transitions, estimated effects is quantitatively small and statistically insignificant. Results suggest that disruptions in sleep patterns induced by DST are not a driver of dwelling fires in the U.K.
Date Issued
2021-01-01
Date Acceptance
2020-04-13
Citation
Fire Technology, 2021, 57, pp.123-144
ISSN
0015-2684
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Start Page
123
End Page
144
Journal / Book Title
Fire Technology
Volume
57
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in
any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and
indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s
Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission
directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat
ivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in
any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and
indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s
Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission
directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat
ivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Identifier
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10694-020-00983-1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Engineering, Multidisciplinary
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Engineering
Materials Science
Dwelling fires
Sleep disruptions
Regression discontinuity
Daylight saving time
REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY DESIGNS
RESIDENTIAL FIRES
SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS
ENERGY EVIDENCE
IMPACT
TRANSITION
DEPRIVATION
PERFORMANCE
DISORDERS
INCIDENTS
Civil Engineering
09 Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-05-11