ArticleSSM - population health2025
The impact of digital infrastructure construction on older adults' cognitive health: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China.
Article in SSM - population health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ten-year trends of the digital divides and its effect on healthy aging among older adults in China from 2011 to 2020.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- The relationship between children's digital literacy and parents' mental health: evidence from China.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Social participation trajectories in late life and cognitive functioning - A sequence analysis based on Taiwan Longitudinal Study on aging.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Can New-type Urbanization Pave a Way against Depression? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2025Article
- Impact of environmental regulation, energy technology innovation on population health.BMC public health · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The digital infrastructure has profoundly changed people's daily lives and health outcomes. However, the causal effect of digital infrastructure on cognitive health remains unclear. The study employs the "Broadband China" policy as a reliable proxy for digital infrastructure, using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) five waves panel data from 2011 to 2020 and a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) method to investigate the causal impact of digital infrastructure construction on the cognitive health in Chinese older adults. We find that digital infrastructure construction has a significant positive effect on the cognitive health of older adults, and the dynamic DID results confirm a persistent effect. Mechanism analysis shows that digital infrastructure improves cognitive health by increasing social interaction, health promotion behaviors (including medical insurance participation and physical exercise), and reducing medical costs. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the cognitive health-improving effect of digital infrastructure construction is stronger among older adults living in urban areas and high-GDP cities, male, low and middle-aged, and highly educated. Our research findings provide empirical evidence for improving cognitive health and healthy aging among older adults through the development of digital infrastructure.
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Registered trials
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