Private health facilities are more frequented by affluent social groups

Source: Studies and Results No. 976, September 2016 Author: Nadège Pradines (DREES) One in three hospitalisations takes place in a private for-profit health facility. Attendance at private clinics is more the result of affluent social groups, and is particularly marked in obstetrics: four out of five pregnancy ends take place in a private clinic among executives, compared to one in ten among workers. In surgery, three times out of four, it is in a private institution that managers are hospitalised, compared to once in two among the workers and the unemployed. In medicine, this greater attendance of private institutions by the wealthy classes is also observed, in smaller proportions, because the private sector’s supply in this area is lower. With age, the frequency of hospitalisations increases and the type of institution depends less on the social category. In particular, pensioners are highly frequented in the public sector, with the former social category playing a lesser role. The analysis does not take into account the differences in morbidities between social categories or those of available supply. The differences revealed in this study are partly a reflection of these differences and therefore cannot be interpreted only as differences of choice between social categories, in a given situation.