H2020Индивидуална стипендия2021–2023

BIMH · The Effects of Broadband Internet on Mental Health

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2021-08-01 → 2023-07-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 178 320 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Връзката между широколентовия интернет у дома и психичното здраве на работниците в Белгия се анализира чрез разстоянието на дома им до мрежовия възел. Резултатите ще помогнат за създаването на здравни политики и правила за правото на „изключване“ след работно време.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

The Effects of Broadband Internet on Mental Health

Since the late 1990s, governments around the world have allocated large amounts of public funds to develop high-speed internet access via broadband infrastructure. Between 2004 and 2011, the percentage of EU households connected to broadband internet rose from 15 to 67% (Eurostat, 2011). Residential high-speed internet has altered how, when, and where individuals conduct a wide range of activities, including work, search for information, sleep, and interact with others. Despite the growing number of studies analyzing the effects of broadband Internet access on a wide range of socioeconomic outcomes, there is scant causal evidence on the link between residential work-related internet use and mental health. There is a growing concern that constant connectivity to work may disrupt work-life balance and be detrimental to workers' well-being. Understanding the causal link between work-related ICT use at home on workers' mental well-being is extremely important to design evidence-based public and health policy. For example, the “right-to-disconnect” policies—which allow workers to be unreachable after work hours—have been gaining traction in many European countries since 2016. In the case of Belgium, the analysis contributes to the analysis of the determinants of long-term disability insurance claims. This project explores the relationship between access to broadband internet and workers’ mental health in Belgium. Our empirical strategy exploits a technological feature of the telecommunication infrastructure that generated substantial variation in the availability and quality of internet: the distance of a household from a network node determined internet access and speed. We merge information about the internet network topology with geocoded longitudinal data from the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Social Security, a rich collection of administrative microdata that collects information on Belgian workers’ labor market trajectories and basic demographics. Using a dynamic difference-in-differences design, we compare mental health-related outcomes of individuals with access to residential internet to those without access. We find that access to broadband internet when initially deployed is associated with a 2-3% increase in long-term disability rates with respect to baseline values. This increase is driven entirely by increases in disability insurance claims due to mental health conditions. We find no changes in the probability of entering long-term disability due to other medical conditions. This project contributes to a broader understanding of the upward trend in work-related illnesses—burnout and chronic stress—and their role in the expansion of disability insurance programs.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

What is the effect of work-related ICT use outside work hours on mental health? The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing challenges posed by the ever-increasing interactions between constant internet connectivity, work-life balance more generally and mental health specifically. While the situation over the last few months stems from a unique crisis, it can be contextualized within recent and broader trends that evidence an increase in diagnosed and reported mental health conditions amongst recipients of disability insurance in many OECD countries. Bearing this exceptional reality in mind alongside broader trends that encourage more work outside the conventional office, this project aims to study the complex links between connectivity to work during non-work time and employee mental health disorders. I study the impact of diffusion of high-speed Internet on mental health-related disability insurance claims in Belgium from 1995 to 2012. My empirical strategy exploits Belgian cross-municipality variation in supply-side constraints to high-speed Internet access based on the pre-existing telephone infrastructure in Belgium. I combine administrative data from the Belgian Crossroads Bank for Social Security (CBSS), a rich set of individual-level microdata, with unique telecommunication data from the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) that document roll-out of ADSL technology across roughly 580 Belgian municipalities.By focusing on the usage of work-related ICT use after traditional work hours and linking that usage to mental well-being, this project offers innovative explanations to the existing economic, management and public policy-oriented literature on disability. More specifically, this project contributes to the understanding of recent trends that fundamentally impact the expansion and costs of both regional and national disability insurance programs.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES · Bruxelles / BrusselКоординаторБелгия