Internet Use and Life Expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa

The study investigates whether internet use is associated with rising life expectancy at birth in 45 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2019. Following the Grossman Health Capital Model, the paper conceptualizes internet access as a productive factor in the health production function. The main estimations employ panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE), and feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) methods verify the results. The empirical evidence supports a positive and nonlinear effect of internet use on life expectancy. The role of other determinants of health is assessed, in particular the effect of public and private health expenditure as well as other fundamentals of public health: food production per capita, immunization coverage, and urbanization. Consistent with the health production model, public and private health spending, immunization, and food per capita are positively and significantly related to longevity. By contrast, rapid urbanization has a statistically significant adverse effect. The empirical findings of the paper have an important policy message for both closing the digital divide and investing in public health infrastructure, which are two important and complementary conditions for longer and healthier lives.