Disparities in access to health care among official language minorities in Quebec

This study examines the effect of a person’s ability to speak French on their health and their access to health care in Quebec using a multiple logistic regression model. Our results indicate that unilingual anglophones in Quebec are 26% more likely than bilingual anglophones to report poor health. This could suggest that unilingual anglophones also make greater use of health care services than their bilingual counterparts. However, unilingual anglophones are instead 52% more likely than their counterparts to report that their health care needs were unmet. These disparities in health status and access to health care appear to hinge on people’s ability to express themselves in French. The results suggest that policies aimed at reducing barriers to access to health care among unilingual anglophones in Quebec could improve the access to health care, and subsequently the health, for this segment of the population.