Does digital technology adoption affect COVID-19 health outcomes? A quantitative analysis on the global level

Purpose Adopting digital technology could facilitate the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some analysts argue that countries that adopted digital technology in their health sector have managed to control the virus better (Whitelaw et al., 2020). For instance, countries with more comprehensive contact tracing have significantly lower fatality rates (Yalaman et al., 2021). Moreover, World Health Organization (WHO) believes this technology is a crucial enabler for countries to meet the current challenge (WHO. Regional Office for the Western Pacific & University of Melbourne, 2021). In this regard, this study aims to quantitatively find the relationship between the technological advancement of countries and COVID-19 health outcomes, using seven technological indices that measure technological advancement. Design/methodology/approach The authors used the multiple linear regression method to answer the research questions. The first analysis focuses on a cross section of all countries worldwide, and the second focuses on European countries for which weekly death statistics exist after the pandemic. Findings The findings support those countries with more technological abilities managed to control the virus’s mortality better, as evidenced by the negative link between the mortality rate of COVID-19 and the technological factors at the national level. Results also reveal that technology adoption decreases the death risk due to COVID-19 in countries with more elderly people. The authors may argue that technological advancement positively correlates with the number of deaths and diagnosed cases because the authors can better collect data or because the virus spreads due to higher economic and business activities. However, such technological advancement significantly decreases the death risk (lower mortality rate in the first analysis and lower mortality rate for elderly people in the second analysis). Research limitations/implications Three important conclusions could be made from the results: a lower mortality rate is generally expected for countries adopting advanced technology; technological advancement significantly decreases the death risk for elderly people; and a higher technology adoption level does not necessarily result in fewer diagnosed cases of/death due to COVID-19. Originality/value Although some studies have focused on e-health applications in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, no studies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, have tried to quantify its efficacy, most especially on the global level.