[Recourse to care and morbidity of the homeless in the Paris district]

The disparities of access to care and morbidity according to different socio-economic characteristics are highlighted over about thirty years; what is the situation with regard to the homeless, the least provided for, who in some sense lie at the limits of the social scale? We present data on hospitalizations, ambulatory care and the morbidity declared by the homeless revealed in the INED survey of February-March 1995 in the Paris region. We tried to compare hospitalizations and physician care of the homeless with the population of "ordinary households" in the same region on the basis of different statistical sources. Hospitalizations are considerably more numerous in this group than in the rest of the population which indicates that the homeless are more exposed to diseases and accidents; on the other hand, taking into account any possible errors of observation, the homeless and the general population seem to have the same rate of recourse to outpatient doctor treatment. Is this also the case for complementary examinations, biological tests and medical imagery?