digital economies, while Germany and France belong to the medium performing group, with France ranking in the lowest position \[[@ref77]\]. As for the level of digitalization in health care in EU, reports suggest that eHealth is still in its infancy. According to the Digital Economy and Society Index for Digital Public Services, less than 1 in 5 EU citizens have used eHealth services in the previous year \[[@ref77]\]. Based on our results, users from countries that have medium performing digital economies were found to be more unwilling or unprepared to share their PHD. Compared with other European users, German users were the most reluctant to share their PHD, while more French users did not know if they would be willing to do so. In contrast, the Finnish participants, despite having the second highest number of negative responses toward willingness to share health data, had the highest percentage of willingness to share data for scientific research. The Dutch participants were the most willing to share their data. These findings likely correspond to the advanced levels of digitalization in Finnish and Dutch economies. However, culture-specific differences between the four countries could also play a role in the interpretation of the results. For instance, it has been reported in the past that German are apprehensive about experiencing negative consequences as result of privacy violations \[[@ref72]\].

In regard to the conditions under which users would be willing to share their PHD, scientific research and financial incentives were prevalent. This is consistent with previous findings \[[@ref45],[@ref72],[@ref77]\]. Finnish users had the most positive attitudes toward sharing for scientific research, which is not surprising as Finland has the highest percentage of users of eHealth services \[[@ref77]\], while in terms of the state of open government data publication, Finland ranks fifth and France fourth \[[@ref78]\]. Reflecting upon this, we could argue that in both countries data are valued as fuel for resear