Social Differences in Health Status and Use of the Health Care System

A European comparison using several health indicators showed that the over-fifty-year-olds in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Scandinavia enjoy the best health. Austria ranks among the upper middle of the 15 countries examined. Based on income data, a positive correlation between a person's socio-economic status and health can be observed for Austria as well as the other countries. This also applies to some extent to the rate of availment of health care services. After accounting for health status and thus for demand, visits to general practitioners and stays in hospitals are more or less equally distributed between the strata of the surveyed age groups, while – in many countries and particularly in Austria – visits to specialists are disproportionately concentrated on better placed social strata.