Deaths increase in the vicinity of coal plants.

The claim is that mortality is higher near coal plants. True: peer-reviewed research or authoritative assessments (for example, EPA, WHO, or epidemiological studies of plant openings and closures) consistently find higher death rates attributable to pollution near coal-fired plants, or lower death rates after they close. Mostly true: the evidence broadly supports the claim but the excess mortality is spread regionally as well as locally, or is shown mainly for particular populations such as infants or the elderly. Mostly false: the claim rests only on one narrow or contested study, or on a correlation without causal support, and is presented as established. False: the body of evidence shows no excess mortality near coal plants.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Mortality risk from United States coal electricity generation PubMed Central (NCBI), article by independent researchers · 23 November 2023

   “Exposure to coal PM2.5 was associated with 2.1 times greater mortality risk than exposure to PM2.5 from all sources.”

2. E2 Mortality risk from United States coal electricity generation PubMed Central (NCBI), article by independent researchers · 23 November 2023

   “for the Keystone facility in Pennsylvania, the average annual number of attributable deaths was 640 (95% CI: 580 to 700) before 2008, but declined to 80 (95% CI: 70 to 90) after scrubber installations in 2009 to 2010.”

3. E3 Accountability Assessment of Health Improvements in the United States Associated with Reduced Coal Emissions Between 2005 and 2012 PubMed Central (NCBI), article by independent researchers · 1 April 2011

   “PVD and all-cause mortality rate changes have very small associations with reduced exposures.”

4. E4 Accountability Assessment of Health Improvements in the United States Associated with Reduced Coal Emissions Between 2005 and 2012 PubMed Central (NCBI), article by independent researchers · 1 April 2011

   “Rates per 10,000 person–years of six cardiac and respiratory health outcomes—all cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, cardiovascular stroke, heart failure, ischemic heart disease, and respiratory tract infections—decreased by between 7.89 and 1.95 per μgm−3 decrease in PM2.5, with comparable decreases in coal exposure leading to slightly larger rate decreases.”

E1 and E2 link coal-derived PM2.5 and one facility's emissions to attributable deaths, and E3 finds only very small associations with all-cause mortality. None of the evidence shows where these deaths occur, so it cannot settle whether mortality is higher in the vicinity of coal plants.