Direct and Indirect Public Health Impacts of Data Center Development: A Protocol for a Scoping Review

Data centers provide essential cloud computing infrastructure supporting digital economy expansion, yet their intensive energy and water requirements, combined with air emissions and land use impacts, present potential environmental health implications requiring systematic public health review. This scoping review aims to synthesize the available evidence on the direct and indirect public health impacts of data center development on surrounding communities. Data centers are defined as large-scale facilities housing computing infrastructure for cloud services, artificial intelligence, and digital operations. The review will be conducted following Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology and reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR recommendations. A comprehensive search will be performed in Engineering Village, Scopus, Policy Commons, and NexisUni, supplemented by targeted grey literature sources. Studies reporting community-level exposures and health or community level outcomes across the full data center lifecycle will be included. Evidence will be synthesized narratively and organized according to direct health impacts, indirect health impacts, and impacts across the data center life course. This protocol aims to ensure transparency and methodological rigor while identifying knowledge gaps and guiding future research on understanding the relationship between data center development and public health.