Study On The Impact Of Internet Use On Rural Residents’ Medical Consumption

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the steady increase in overall national strength,the income of the people has increased substantially,and the demand for medical and health services is constantly increasing.Medical consumption is closely linked to health,and residents pay more attention to health investment through healthcare consumption.The increase in healthcare consumption reflects the gradual improvement of people’s health awareness.There are many factors that affect residents’ medical consumption,mainly from the perspective of demographic characteristics,medical insurance,family wealth or income.However,there is a lack of literature on medical consumption from the perspective of the internet.Due to the rapid popularization of the internet,people’s consumption patterns have changed,gradually shifting from offline to online.With the increasing availability of medical information and the gradual improvement of people’s health awareness,it is of great significance to study the impact of internet use on rural residents’ medical consumption.This article uses the national representative micro survey data of China Household Finance Survey（CHFS）in 2017.First of all,the concept of rural residents and medical consumption are defined,questions are raised based on medical consumption related literature,and a research framework is constructed.Secondly,through the analysis of rural medical consumption and internet status in China,it was found that from 2010 to 2017,rural residents’ per capita healthcare expenditure was on the rise,from 326 yuan per capita to 1058.7 yuan,an increase of three times.China proposed the “Broadband China” strategy in 2013,followed by the “Broadband Village” pilot project,and the rapid development and popularity of the internet in rural areas.As of 2018,the number of rural internet users has reached 211 million,compared with 2016 an increase of 5.63 million people shows that the popularity of the internet is fast,and it has penetrated into all aspects of the lives of rural residents,gradually changing their way of life and consumption.In empirical research,this article uses ordinary least squares（OLS）to build a model to study the impact of internet use on rural residents’ medical consumption from the perspective of the internet.After controlling individual characteristics of household heads,family structure,county macroeconomic variables,the study found that for every 10% increase in internet use,medical consumption increased by 0.67 percentage points.Second,use broadband coverage to transform internet use for robustness testing.Through the Hausman test,this key core variable of internet use is endogenous.In this paper,community-level internet use is used as a tool variable for re-estimation,and the results are still significant.Finally,this paper further analyzes the heterogeneity of the characteristics of individual heads of households and geographical characteristics on the impact of internet use on rural residents’ medical consumption.The head of the household is a key individual that affects household consumption,so this article analyzes the heterogeneity of individual characteristics such as gender,education level,and age of the head of the household.The study found that internet use affects males and households headed by junior high school and above of medical consumption has a significant positive impact,and the use of internet by heads of households in the 25-55 age group has a significant positive impact on their household’s medical consumption.Geographically,the impact of internet use on rural households medical consumption in the eastern region compared to the central and western regions is significant at a statistical level of 1%.Finally,based on the conclusions,the following policy recommendations are made:continue to popularize internet infrastructure and benefit rural residents;continue to increase efforts to promote rural internet coverage;take a multi-pronged approach to strengthen the transformation of non-netizens in rural areas;improve the skills of internet applications for rural residents.