Your conjecture that this research is shoddy appears to be unfounded. By using Life Quality Index, which includes Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy, the research

Your conjecture that this research is shoddy appears to be unfounded. By using Life Quality Index, which includes Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy, the research takes into account well-being and health impacts other than death; making expected-value decisions on such a metric is a standard way to encode a nonlinear objective function without needing to use higher central moments elsewhere in the decision. Furthermore, the analysis does look at the economic impacts of relocating people from their homes and does not simply compare the statistics against air pollution. Finally, economic analysis of old-style nuclear remains incredibly relevant, given that existing "legacy" nuclear power-generating stations represent a significant fraction of total stationary power-generating capacity, and that we have witnessed political movements to replace these facilities with fossil-fuel burning plants due to fear of nuclear accident.