School of Business, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China.
Front Public Health. 2023 May 4;11:1122718. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1122718. eCollection 2023.
Healthcare expenditure is only one of the heavy burdens that families face in developing countries. Current research mainly focuses on analyzing the effects of financial policy. There is a lack of studies that examine the understanding and assessment of the impact of digital infrastructure on this issue. In this study, we used the Broadband China policy as a quasi-natural experiment to explore the impact of digital infrastructure on residents' healthcare expenditures in China. Using the differences-in-differences (DID) model and micro-survey data, we found that digital infrastructure has a positive impact on reducing the burden of healthcare expenditure in China. Our findings indicate that residents in cities can save up to 18.8% on healthcare expenses following large-scale digital infrastructure construction. Through mechanism analysis, we found that digital infrastructure reduces residents' healthcare expenditures by improving both commercial insurance availability and the healthcare efficiency of residents. In addition, the effects of digital infrastructure on reducing healthcare expenditure are more pronounced among middle-aged individuals, those with low levels of education, and those with low incomes, which indicates this digital construction wave helps bridge the social gap between the poor and the rich. This study provides compelling evidence of the positive impact of digital society construction on social health and wellbeing.
医疗保健支出只是发展中国家家庭面临的沉重负担之一。目前的研究主要集中在分析财政政策的影响上。缺乏研究来检验对数字基础设施对这一问题的理解和评估。在这项研究中，我们使用“宽带中国”政策作为准自然实验，来探索数字基础设施对中国居民医疗保健支出的影响。我们利用双重差分（DID）模型和微观调查数据发现，数字基础设施对减轻中国居民医疗保健支出负担具有积极影响。研究结果表明，在大规模数字基础设施建设后，城市居民的医疗保健支出可节省高达 18.8%。通过机制分析，我们发现数字基础设施通过提高商业保险的可及性和提高居民的医疗保健效率来降低居民的医疗保健支出。此外，数字基础设施对降低医疗支出的影响在中年人群体、受教育程度较低的人群和收入较低的人群中更为显著，这表明这一波数字建设浪潮有助于弥合贫富之间的社会差距。本研究为数字社会建设对社会健康和福祉的积极影响提供了有力证据。
