PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental Health and Exposome
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1581460
This article is part of the Research TopicEnvironmental degradation, health, and socioeconomic impactsView all 16 articles
The Energy-Health-Environment Nexus: Assessing the Transboundary Impacts of Coal-Fired Power Plants
Provisionally accepted
Raja Dhar1
Sayantan Sarkar2
Chen Luo3
Megha Anand2
Shyamasree Dasgupta2
Ujjwal Neogi4
Apostolos Bossios5Rausan Zamir6
Mohammad Shoeb7
Joyanto Routh3*- 1Calcutta Medical Research Institute, CK Birla Hospitals, Kolkata,, India
- 2Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India
- 3Linköping University, Linköping, Östergötland, Sweden
- 4Karolinska University Laboratory, Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
- 5Karolinska University Hospital, Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
- 6University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh
- 7University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
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Point source emissions from large coal-fired power plants are pivotal in the energy-health-environment nexus, impacting energy security, air quality, and public health outcomes. Despite this, there is a lack of interdisciplinary prospective studies focusing on the effects of power plant emissions on the population residing downwind. To address this gap, a comprehensive, multicenter, interdisciplinary study on a transboundary scale (India and Bangladesh) has been launched, which includes modeling power plant emissions, seasonal collection of particulate matter and its chemical analysis, socioeconomic surveys of the case (downwind) and control (upwind) populations, lung health assessments, and transcriptomic analyses of blood samples. The outcomes will provide quantitative estimates of power plant impacts on air quality, lung health, and blood markers associated with pulmonary complications. This approach comprehensively assesses the population health impacts of power plant emissions. Moreover, by conducting lung tests in patients on-site, the health team captures an actual snapshot of air pollution. The study establishes causality between power plant emissions, particulate matter characteristics, and population exposure levels while accounting for social, demographic, and economic factors, the study establishes. By integrating diverse techniques, quantitative and qualitative methods, and perspectives, this study aims to enhance scientific understanding of the health and environmental risks and the socioeconomic burden associated with coal-based energy generation in developing countries.
Keywords: Coal, power plant emissions, Transboundary pollution, Lung Health, Socioeconomic status
Received: 24 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dhar, Sarkar, Luo, Anand, Dasgupta, Neogi, Bossios, Zamir, Shoeb and Routh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Joyanto Routh, Linköping University, Linköping, 581 83, Östergötland, Sweden
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