RECOURSE TO CARE AND MORBIDITY OF THE HOM ELESS IN PARIS DISTRICT

The disparities of access to care and morbidity according to different socio-economic characteristics are highlighted over about thirty year s; what is the situation with regard to the homeless, the least provid ed for, who in some sense lie at the limits of the social scale ? We p resent data on hospitalizations, ambulatory care and the morbidity dec lared by the homeless revealed in the INED survey of February-March 19 95 in the Paris region. We tried to compare hospitalizations and physi cian care of the homeless,with the population of ''ordinary households '' in the same region on the basis of different statistical sources. H ospitalizations are considerably more numerous in this group than in t he rest of the population which indicates that the homeless are more e xposed to diseases and accidents, on the other hand, taking into accou nt any possible errors of observation, the homeless and the general po pulation seem to have the same rate of recourse to outpatient doctor t reatment. Is this also the case for complementary examinations, biolog ical tests and medical imagery?