Les déterminants du renoncement aux soins pour raisons financières des étudiants – une analyse à partir de l’étude i-Share

There is little knowledge about French students? access to health care. This observation raises the issue of health care utilization, especially among those facing economic difficulties as they could renounce to some care. Using data from the i-Share (Internet-based students health research enterprise) study, this article aims to examine factors associated with self-assessed unmet healthcare needs for financial reasons among university students. We focused on three types of care : medical doctor consultations (either generalist or specialist), dentist consultations and optical care. Our findings suggest the existence of strong inequalities in access to healthcare services among French students. The analyses show that older students are more likely to report unmet need for financial reasons. We also observed that college students? financial unmet need is associated with a set of variables describing their material and socioeconomic situation (e.g. type of accommodation, job status, receiving social grants, parental financial support). These results encourage to assess the potential long term impact of such economic difficulties to access care. They also suggest the need for adapted public policies in order to improve students? access to services and complementary health insurance. Classification JEL : I14, I13