Health outcome and expenditure in low-income countries: does increasing diffusion of information and communication technology matter?

This paper examines whether increasing diffusion of ICTs has the potential to improve healthcare use and access to better health outcome and higher spending on health in 38 low-income countries with a panel data for the period of 1995 to 2015. The panel corrected standard error, and fixed effect Driscoll-Kraay methods were used to account for unobserved heterogeneity and cross-section dependence in the panel data. A healthoutcome index was developed using partial least square based on a structural equation model with SmartPLS (version 2) software package. The estimated results indicate that increasing diffusion of ICT impacts both the health outcome and expenditure, positively and significantly. The association is stronger when the diffusion of ICT takes place in rural areas. In conclusion, ICT is not only a means for providing better healthcare services but also an essential instrument for popularizing healthcare access and use for all.