The Interplay between Public Health, Well-Being and Population Aging in Europe: An Advanced Structural Equation Modelling and Gaussian Network Approach.

Given the COVID-19 pandemic crisis that has deeply affected the health and well-being of people worldwide, the main objective of this paper was to explore the existing relationship between health, welfare, and population aging until the pandemic burst, on the basis of two distinctive groups of European Union (EU) countries, namely, the old and the new member states. The methodological endeavor was based on two advanced econometric techniques, namely, structural equation modelling and network analysis through Gaussian graphical models, applied for each group of EU countries, analyzed during the period of 1995-2017. The main results revealed significant differentiation among the new and old EU countries as follows: public health support was found to have a positive impact on healthy aging and well-being of older people, on other social determinants, and on people's perceived good and very good health; overall, significant influences were revealed in terms of the aging dimensions.

The interplay between knowledge-based competitiveness, people's good health and well-being: new empirical evidence from Central and Eastern European countries.

The enhancement of countries' competitiveness represents an essential credential in current economic interventions, national policy frameworks and strategies, mainly in relation to sustainable economic development. This paper explores the drivers of competitiveness in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) in the knowledge economy, and its further impact on economic welfare, with a particular focus on individuals' perceived good health and well-being (a good predictor of people's future use of the healthcare system and mortality risk and a benchmark for sustainable development). The dataset grasps 11 CEECs analyzed during the 2000-2018 lapse of time.