DIGITAL SKILLS AND ONLINE HEALTH ACTIVITIES IN BULGARIA: A COMPARISON WITH THE EU-27 AND SOUTHEAST EUROPE

Abstract

The study examines Bulgaria’s position relative to the EU-27 and selected Southeast European countries in population digital skills, economy-wide ICT employment and the use of online health services. It also considers what these indicators can and cannot show about digital-health readiness. A comparative descriptive analysis was conducted using eight indicators from three Eurostat datasets retrieved in September 2026. Six indicators refer to 2025, while appointment booking and access to personal health records refer to 2024. Bulgaria is compared with the EU-27, Romania, Greece, Croatia, North Macedonia and Serbia. Bulgaria remained below the EU-27 in both at least basic digital skills (38.3% versus 60.4%) and above-basic skills (11.8% versus 31.4%), with the largest digital-skills gap recorded among people aged 65-74. The share of employed ICT specialists was close to the EU-27 level (4.8% versus 5.0%), although the indicator covers the whole economy and the EU value is estimated. Online health activities were less common in Bulgaria, with differences ranging from 8.2 pp for access to personal health records to 23.3 pp for health-information seeking, while Bulgaria’s position among the regional comparators varied by indicator. The indicators describe different aspects of digital development but do not explain how population skills, health-service use and workforce capacity are related. National monitoring should include direct measures of health professionals’ digital competence and service-level evidence on availability, usability and actual use