Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 May 26;23(1):959.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15788-4.

Impact of digital economic development and environmental pollution on residents' health: an empirical analysis based on 279 prefecture-level cities in China

Yan-Ting He #  1 , Yue-Chi Zhang  2 , Wen Huang  3 , Ruo-Nan Wang  1 , Luo-Xuan He  1 , Bei Li #  4 , Yi-Li Zhang #  5
Affiliations

Impact of digital economic development and environmental pollution on residents' health: an empirical analysis based on 279 prefecture-level cities in China

Yan-Ting He et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The digital economy based on the internet and IT is developing rapidly in China, which makes a profound impact on urban environmental quality and residents' health activities. Thus, this study introduces environmental pollution as a mediating variable based on Grossman's health production function to explore the impact of digital economic development on the health of the population and its influence path.

Methods: Based on the panel data of 279 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2017, this paper investigates the acting mechanism of digital economic development on residents' health by employing a combination of mediating effects model and spatial Durbin model.

Results: The development of digital economy makes direct improvement on residents' health condition, which is also obtained indirectly by means of environmental pollution mitigation. Besides, from the perspective of spatial spillover effect, the development of digital economy also has a significant promoting effect on the health of adjacent urban residents, and further analysis reveals that the promoting effect in the central and western regions of China is more pronounced than that in the eastern region.

Conclusions: Digital economy can have a direct promoting effect on the health of residents, and environmental pollution has an intermediary effect between digital economy and residents' health; At the same time, there is also a regional heterogeneity among the three relationships. Therefore, this paper believes that the government should continue to formulate and implement scientific digital economy development policies at the macro and micro levels to narrow the regional digital divide, improve environmental quality and enhance the health level of residents.

Keywords: Digital economic development; Environmental pollution; Mediating effect; Residents’ health; Spatial Durbin model.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Research framework
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Relationship among digital economic development, environmental pollution and residents’ health
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Study area map
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Moran scatter plot of China ' s digital economic development and residents ' health in 2017
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Spatial distribution maps of healthy prefecture-level cities in China in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. OECD, Digital Economy. Outlook 2015. [10.1787/9789264232440-en] Accessed 1 June 2022.
    1. Schwab K. The fourth industrial revolution. Currency; 2017.p.6–13.
    1. Ye X, Hong SH, Song WS, Kim YC, Zhang X. An industry 4.0 Asset Administration Shell-Enabled Digital Solution for Robot-Based Manufacturing Systems. Ieee Access. 2021;9:154448–59. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3128580. - DOI
    1. Boyes H, Hallaq B, Cunningham J, Watson T. The industrial internet of things (IIoT): an analysis framework. Comput Ind. 2018;101:1–12. doi: 10.1016/j.compind.2018.04.015. - DOI
    1. Central People’s Government of. the People’ s Republic of China.Made in China 2025. [http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015-05/19/content_2864538.htm]. Accessed 5 Oct 2022.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources