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Do information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to health outcomes? An empirical analysis

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Abstract

This study analyses the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and population health. The analysis is based on econometric model of population health in 184 countries using panel data spanning over 1990–2014. The analysis is based on fixed effects method on the basis of Hausman test. Besides, to deal with endogenous nature of ICT two stage least squares and system GMM are used in cross-sectional and panel data, respectively. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth and infant mortality rates. In this study, we measure ICT infrastructure using three proxies namely internet users, mobile cellular subscriptions, and fixed telephone subscriptions. The empirical results show a positive and significant impact of ICT on population health. This study recommends that health care programs need to focus on polices which foster digital inclusion.

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Notes

  1. The statistics are calculated over the period 1960–2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Muhammad Tariq Majeed & Farzana Naheed Khan

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  1. Muhammad Tariq Majeed
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  2. Farzana Naheed Khan
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Correspondence to Muhammad Tariq Majeed.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Table 10 Fixed effects and random effects result of health (infant mortality) and ICT
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Table 11 Descriptive statistics of variables
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Table 12 Correlation matrix of variables
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Table 13 Pooled OLS result of health and ICT with regional effects
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Table 14 List of countries
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Majeed, M.T., Khan, F.N. Do information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to health outcomes? An empirical analysis. Qual Quant 53, 183–206 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-018-0741-6

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