“This paper analyses the relationship between the demand for health care and that for health insurance by the population of Côte d’Ivoire. A Poisson model is used to estimate the demand for health care and a multinomial logit model for estimating the demand for insurance. The data on which the research was based were taken from a sample of 2,040 households that were interviewed as part of a survey on Recours aux soins et dépenses de santé or PSA 92 which was carried
out in 1992 in Yopougon, a working class neighbourhood of Abidjan. The results show
that the length of the illness appears to be the factor that triggers the use of modern
health care.They also indicate that employment and age are important factors in making decisions about which insurance to take. “
