A panel analysis of the strategic association between information and communication technology and public health delivery

Abstract

Background: In this exploratory research, we use panel data analysis to examine the correlation between Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) and public health delivery at the country level. Objective: The goal of this exploratory research is to examine the strategic association over time between ICTs and country-level public health. Methods: Using data from the World Development Indicators, we construct a panel data set of countries of five different income levels and look closely at the period from 2000 to 2008. The panel data analysis allows us to explore this dynamic relationship under the control for unobserved country-specific effects by using a fixed-effects estimation method. In particular, we examine the association of five ICT factors with five public health indicators: adolescent fertility rate, child immunization coverage, tuberculosis case detected, life expectancy, and adult mortality rate. Results: First, overall ICTs' factors substantially improve a country's public health delivery on the top of wealth effect. Second, among all the ICTs' factors, accessibility is the only one that is associated with improvements in all aspects of public health delivery, while the contributions from the usage, quality, and applications are negligible. ICTs' accessibility factor is associated with a considerable extension to life expectancy and reduced adult mortality rate. Third, all entity-specific factors are significant in each model, indicating that countries' economic development level does influence their public health delivery. Conclusions: Our results indicate that ICT accessibility has a strong association with effective delivery of public health. There are others, but the key strategic applications are eHealth and mHealth. The findings of this study will help government officials and public health policy makers to formulate strategic decisions regarding the best ICT investments and deployment. For example, the study shows that providing accessibility should be a critical focus.