The rapid development of digital health poses a critical challenge to the personal health data protection of patients. The European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) works in this context; it was passed in April 2016 and came into force in May 2018 across the European Union. This study is the first attempt to test the effectiveness of this legal reform for personal health data protection. Using the difference-in-difference (DID) approach, this study empirically examines the policy influence of the GDPR on the financial performance of hospitals across the European Union. Results show that hospitals with the digital health service suffered from financial distress after the GDPR was published in 2016. This reveals that during the transition period (2016–2018), hospitals across the European Union indeed made costly adjustments to meet the requirements of personal health data protection introduced by this new regulation, and thus inevitably suffered a policy shock to their financial performance in the short term. The implementation of GDPR may have achieved preliminary success.

This study investigates the relationship between internalized stigmatization brought on by epicenter travel experiences and mental health problems (including anxiety, depression, and shame) during the period of the novel coronavirus disease emergency in China. The cross-sectional data were collected using the time-lag design to avoid the common method bias as much as possible. Regression results using structural equation modeling show that the internalized stigmatization of epicenter travel experiences may have positive relationships with mental health problems (i.e., anxiety, depression, and shame), and such relationships can be moderated by social support. Specifically, the positive relationships between internalized stigmatization and mental health problems are buffered/strengthened when social support is at a high/low level. The findings of this study suggest that, in this epidemic, people who have epicenter travel experience could be affected by internalized stigmatization, no matter whether they have ever got infected.

Background: The deepening population aging is urging policy makers to launch delayed retirement initiative, when the society is faced with unprecedented challenges of shrinking labor supply, heavier pension burdens and slowing economic growth. However, the health outcomes of late retirees receive scarce attention due to the intrinsic identification difficulties (i.e., (1) self-selection bias – older adults with predetermined ill-health are less likely to delay retirement. (2) there can be situations where the status of late retirement has terminated at the time of interview, although he/she has ever delayed retirement). To fill in this research gap, this study examines the effect of late retirement on the difficulty in physical functioning and problems of cognitive status among older adults. Method: Using the data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS-2015 harmonized, and CHARLS-2018), this study investigates the influence of late retirement (year 2015) on the difficulty in physical functioning and problems of cognitive status (year 2018) among older adults. A series of robustness checks are also conducted. Results: Empirical results show that late retirement is associated with better physical functioning and cognitive status. The influence remains robust after considering potential self-selection bias and the sensitivity of including/excluding older adults who have past late retirement experience but have no longer been late retirees at the time of survey. Conclusion: This study suggests that older adults might benefit from the engagement in late careers in their physical and cognitive functioning.

This article examined the phenomenon about social connectivity behavior after-hours in hotel industry, which emerged from smartphones enabling hotel employees to socialize with work-related people anywhere and anytime. Results from longitudinal data showed that social connectivity behavior after-hours on smartphones would lead hotel employees to suffer from work–life conflict. The increase in such behavior could trigger corresponding increase in work–life conflict over time. For hotel employees with weak segmentation preference, the dynamic effect of such behavior on work–life conflict was greater. Besides, impression management and subjective norm were the motivation and cognition cause behind such behavior respectively. Over time, both of them positively influenced the initial level and change rate of this behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of findings in this article were discussed.