There are numerous sections I will use to build upon this literature review. The first thing I will do is discuss. The section on Education: Literacy and Impacts on Academic Achievement specifically is was useful for my part of the essay. There is a quote that says "Education, as it relates to energy insecurity, also has implications for health. Lacking sufficient knowledge and ability to navigate bureaucracy of utility companies makes it difficult for less educated households to address and prevent energy insecurity." I build on this to create the terminology assistance literacy. There is also a section which talks about how poor housing conditions can make certain illnesses more likely, turning acute insecurity into chronic insecurity. Many of our results on how respondents would deal with an acute disruption during COVID involved leaving their house, putting them at risk to COVID.
Jessel et al. review the vast literature on energy insecurity from 1990-2018 and they do a great job identifying both its strengths and weaknesses. Thus, this article is useful in providing a base of what aspects, dimensions, or dynamics of energy have been covered and how. Furthermore, their article can also serve as a useful "cheat sheet" of the socio-cultural factors to pay attention to when studying energy insecurity or other energy related phenomena.
After reading, I am curious about the relationship between energy in/security and energy il/literacy: i.e. are there any patterns or correlations between levels of security and frequencies in the type (van den Broek) or level (Blyth and Sovacool) of energy literacy? Can an improvement in energy literacy help populations become more energy secure?
The text talks a lot about the adverse health effects that can come from frozen pipes, broken electrical systems, etc. Here there are latent discussions of maintenance and, as we talk about energy literacy, household maintenance falls within it. Discussions could be made as to why workshops and education resources on household maintenance are needed. We should really consider Jessel et al. (2019)'s discussion of primary and secondary sources of energy vulnerability as directly linked to energy literacy. I think it could be useful to have a section in which energy literacy is discussed as a right and how, currently, lacking energy literacy contributes or is at the basis of many of the factors shown on page 4. Of course, one assertion we should make clear in our discussion is that qualitative research is valid and captures the details that cannot be reflected in non-ethnographic surveying.