Access to physician services in Quebec: Relative influence of household income and area of residence

The 1960s were marked by the setting up of medicare by federal and provinci al governments in Canada. The official aim of this undertaking was to elimi nate inequality of access to medical care, and in the first instance inequa lity on the basis of incomes. Governments were also concerned with inequali ty in the regional distribution of medical services. The objective of this paper is to document these two dimensions of accessib ility to medical services as present in Quebec in 1991 in terms of househol d consumption of such services. Data for this study come from administrativ e files, principally those of the Quebec Health Insurance Board. The paper reviews measures taken by the Quebec government to attract doctor s to locate in outlying regions of the province. In spite of these measures , results obtained indicate that significant differences existed in 1991 be tween outlying and central regions and that results for intermediate region s occur between these two poles. After controlling for age of head and hous ehold composition, differences by income are no longer significant.