Internet use and self-assessed health among older people: an update using SHARE data / Aida-Isabel Tavares

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Bibliografía: p.13-15

Background: Ten years ago, an age-related digital divide was identified, where the elderly were a group of people at risk of
losing the benefits of a digital society. Since then a 'new' generation of elderly has emerged. We are now updating previous
studies on the relationship between self-assessed health and internet use by elderly persons.
Objective: The two aims of this work are to find a relationship between self-assessed health and internet use by elderly people in
European countries and to ascertain whether this relationship differs in countries with a more developed eHealth policy.
Methods: Individual data from the SHARE survey version 6.0.0 published in 2017 for 18 countries are used. An ordered logistic
regression is estimated for all the countries in the sample and for two subsets of countries which differ in their eHealth
performance.
Results: Results show that elderly people who use the internet tend to report better health status. The estimated coefficient
equals 0.288 (p=0.00). This relationship is stronger in countries with higher eHealth performance where the estimated coefficient
equals 0.413 (p=0.00). In countries with lower eHealth performance, that coefficient equals 0.148 (p=0.00).
Conclusions: This study showed that internet use is a determinant of self-assessed health among the elderly. There are lines for
future research such as explaining 'why' and 'how' trust may influence the relationship between internet use and self-assessed
health and examining the digital divide due to socioeconomic inequality.