Although horizontal equity is considered a universal guiding principle in socialized health systems, most of the countries where such systems are implemented show social inequalities in health care services consumption.This thesis brings together four studies. It aims at contributing to the analyses of health system reforms regarding equity in access to health care services.The introduction provides a description of social inequalities in health care services consumption in France as well as of the main mechanisms which, inside the French health system, can give rise to these inequalities.In the first chapter we study the links between financial barriers in accessing healthcare and health status. We show that unmet needs for financial reasons are associated with worse future health status.The second chapter proposes an analysis of the doctor-patient interaction and how it can affects inequalities in health care consumption. We first study the categorizations operated by the doctors about their patients according to the patients’ socioeconomic status. We then study how these categorizations interact with observed practices patterns.The third chapter brings together two analyses of the “preferred doctor reform”. A first study analyses the reform and its context, with a focus on the role of the stakeholders. A second study investigates the consequences of the reform on financial access to specialist care.
