Is there a link between access to broadband and health outcomes?

Abstract

There is significant evidence of the positive effects of broadband expansion on various economic outcomes, including property values and business development, with a growing literature aimed at understanding the effect on health outcomes. We contribute to this later literature exploring the effect of broadband access on underexplored health using U.S. county data. After accounting for spatial dependency within the data we find that broadband availability positively affects health outcomes: as broadband access increase, we see declines in the share of the population with fair or poor health and the number of both physically and mentally unhealthy days. The investment of broadband availability not only impacts the overall economy but also community quality of life as measured by health outcomes.