The Role of Digital Economy in Transformation of Public Health: Modeling and Analysis

Digital transformation has a significant impact on public life quality. The ability to use unlimited information resources and innovative digital services creates new ideas about a comfortable environment, self-realization, effective communication, etc. One of the key areas of digital transformation has been the introduction of digital technologies into healthcare, which is now common in developed countries. Digitalization has promoted digital medicine, the latest methods of diagnosis, disease treatment, and prevention. Econometric models are relevant tools for assessing the influence of digitalization on healthcare. They provide an opportunity to build empirical evidence that becomes a basis for developing evidence-based recommendations for the implementation of healthcare innovations. This paper checks how new digital determinants impact public health via econometric models. To build panel regression models, the study used statistical data from 2016-2022 for 31 European countries. The following healthcare indexes were selected: life expectancy, mortality, self-rated health by gender, age, and education. Some indicators were independent: Internet access, immunization, household expenditures on medical services, number of medical graduates, global innovation, etc. As a result of econometric analysis, three models were built: the fixed effect models for life expectancy, mortality, and self-rated health by gender, age, and education. The models proved to be adequate. The use of principal component analysis (PCA) reduced multicollinearity between variables by identifying the most significant components. All calculations were conducted using STATA software. The analysis demonstrated that digitalization has positive and negative impacts on public health, depending on the specifics of digital technology use and socioeconomic conditions. The study results confirmed the impact of economic digitalization is multifaceted. The statistical analysis of the input data showed a correlation between digitalization (Internet access, use of online resources, digital literacy) and public health indicators (life expectancy, mortality, self-rated health).