Payer nuit gravement à la santé : une étude de l’impact du renoncement financier aux soins sur l’état de santé

This article focusses on self-assessed unmet needs for financial reasons. We study its social and economic determinants and its consequences on future health status, from a longitu- dinal dataset: the French Heath, Health care and Insurance Survey (Enquête Santé Protection Sociale). We first show that living standards, access to complementary health insurance and life course factors (past, current and anticipated socioeconomic status) have an impact on self-assessed unmet needs. We then show that self-assessed unmet needs have a detrimental causal effect on future health status, suggesting that financial barriers in access to health care contribute to social health inequalities.