有鑑於社會經濟環境的變遷，國人教育水準的提升及生活水準的提高，國人的疾病類型由以往的傳染性疾病，轉為現在的慢性疾病，且慢性疾病的治療花費佔醫療支出相當龐大的比例，而慢性疾病的首要防治工作，即是預防保健。所以我們想探討影響個人使用預防保健的因素有哪些。國外許多學者的文獻都指出，教育是影響預防保健需求的重要因素之一，教育程度愈高的個人，對預防保健的需求愈高，而愈會去使用預防保健服務之個人，其風險態度可能較傾向為風險趨避。我們欲瞭解在考量個人風險態度之前後，教育因素對預防保健需求的影響，是否有被高估之可能。
　　本篇論文所使用的實證資料來自行政院衛生署國民健康局執行的「民國九十一年台灣地區國民健康促進知識、態度與行為調查」，我們利用bivariate probit模型和probit模型來分析。實證結果指出，在控制個人風險態度之後，在40歲以上之婦女方面，教育對健康檢查、乳房Ｘ光攝影檢查及乳房超音波檢查之影響，有被高估之可能。而25～39歲之個人，在個人風險態度控制之前後，教育對各項預防保健需求之影響程度，並沒有變動，這可能是因為25～39歲個人的風險態度對各項預防保健健康檢查服務之需求，並沒有顯著的影響效果，即個人之風險態度沒有明顯的影響個人使用預防保健服務的決策。

Due to social, economic and environmental changes, higher education, and better living quality recently in Taiwan, the type of diseases has changed from infectious diseases to chronic diseases. The proportion of chronic treatments is tremendous in medical expenses. In order to fight chronic diseases, preventive health care is the best policy. Therefore, we try to find out the factors which affect people’s decisions in preventive health care. According to traditional literatures, education is one of the main factors. Demand for health care increases with people’s education level, and the more people turn to health care, their attitude will more likely turn to risk averse. Furthermore, we would like to examine the possibility of over-estimation of the influence education has on the demand of preventive health care, after taking risk attitude into consideration.
According to the data from the Department of Health of R. O. C., we use a bivariate probit model and a probit model to analyze the relationship between education and risk attitude. Our results show that after restraining personal risk attitude, in women of the age group 40 and above, the influence of educational level on personal checkups, breast X rays and sonar inspection show the possibility of over-estimation. In the age group 25-30, there is no significant change in influences on health inspection, possibly due to the lack of effect risk attitude has on the demand of health inspections.

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