E-Government Quality and Public Service Performance: Evidence from the State Department of Public Health

With regard to e-government impact, prior studies have mainly focused on the quality of e-government portal and general e-government effectiveness. However, this study has examined how specific agency's e-government service quality (e.g. department of public health at state government) influence corresponding agency's service performance. The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between e-government quality and the performance of public health service in the context of state government. Specifically, the focus of this study lies on the quality of state public health agency websites and public health service performance. One primary mission of state public health agency is to provide stakeholders with public health services including up-to-date and accurate public health information. On the one hand, once state public health agencies provides high quality public health information with stakeholders such as legislative and judicial bodies, other health-related government agencies, business firms, nonprofit organizations and ordinary citizens, these stakeholders are well informed to change health behaviors (e.g. smoking), to make decisions on public health policies (e.g. health insurance), to make preparation for community health risks (e.g. air pollution), and to choose clinical care services (e.g. primary care physician). This argument allows us to expect that e-government service quality is likely to have positive association with the performance of public health agency. On the other hand, due to high visibility, providing high quality e-government services may allows state agencies to enhance their political and professional image as a high-tech expert, which may not be linked their performance directly. This counter argument leads us to expect that e-government quality is not likely to connect with the performance. To test these competing arguments empirically, we use e-government quality data collected from 50 State health agencies and public service performance data from 2008 America's health annual report provided by United Health Foundation.