Prediction of Life Quality Index Value Rankings of Countries After the COVID-19 Pandemic by Artificial Neural Networks

Abstract

There are some indexes that affect the quality of life of countries. Economic crises, pandemics, natural events, etc. affect these indexes. The COVID-19 pandemic also had a direct impact on all these indexes. In this study, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of life of countries was investigated. In this context, 29 different artificial neural networks were trained between 2012 and 2019 with the data of 29 countries in the European continent, consisting of a total of six indexes. The countries' quality of life indexes for 2020 were predicted and compared with the quality of life indexes realized in 2020. The study was evaluated according to the performance criteria R, R2, RMSE and MAPE in the range "very good, good, valid and invalid" and showed “very good” results. In this study, it was found that the country with the highest decrease in quality of life after the pandemic was Germany and the country with the highest increase was Bulgaria. In Turkey and Spain, the change in quality of life indexes was close to zero. In accordance with the results, evaluations were made and suggestions were made.