OBJECTIVES : To investigate the personal characteristics associated with subscription to private health insurance in Greece.

METHODS : Primary data were extracted from the “Health and Welfare” survey, a health interview survey conducted by the Hellenic National School of Public Health and refer to 2017. The final sample of the analysis consisted of 1,945 adults. To assess the personal characteristics associated with subscription to private health insurance, a binary logistic regression analysis was conducted, where the dependent variable was the subscription to private health insurance, while independent variables were region of residence, gender, age, occupation, marital status, family income, possession of social health insurance, educational level, existence of chronic condition, smoking status and time since last check-up.

RESULTS : In total, 12.6% of the sample was subscriber to private health insurance. Most of the participants with private health insurance were 40-54 years old (40.0%), male (51.8%), had tertiary education (58.4%), lived in Attica (60.0%), had a monthly income higher than 1,000€ (76.4%), had social health insurance (89.0%), didn’t have a chronic condition (69.8%), were employers/self-employed (30.7%) and had their last health check-up one year before the interview (81.6%). The personal characteristics that were found to be associated with subscription to private health insurance were: area of residence: Attica (OR=4.178), income level: 1,001€-1,500€ (OR=2.111), 1,501€-2,000€ (OR=2.250) and 2,001€+ (OR=5.435), absence of chronic condition: (OR=1.600), occupation: Employer/self-employed (OR=3.164), absence of social health insurance (OR=4.117), time since last health check-up: >1 and ≤5 years (OR=0.589), 5> years or never (OR=0.290) and level of education: Secondary (OR=3.161) and Tertiary (OR=3.364).

CONCLUSIONS : Investigation of the socioeconomic factors that are associated with acquiring private health insurance may lead to targeted policies concerning private health insurance population coverage uptake and, thus, to a decrease in out-of-pocket payments, who are high in Greece, compared to other countries.