Health disparity widens between rich and poor: study

Cancer patients from high-income families have a much higher survival rate than their low-income counterparts, a report showed Tuesday.

According to the Korea Institute for Health Affairs, the five-year survival rate of male cancer patients in the top 20 percent income bracket was 37.84 percent, 13.80 percentage points higher than those in the bottom 20 percent. Three-year and one-year survival rates of patients from the two income groups also differed by 14.32 percentage points and 14.69 percentage points, respectively.

The research led by Yoon Tae-ho, a professor at Busan National University, is based on data from the National Health Insurance Corp. and Statistics Korea, KIHASA said.

Health care inequality between the rich and poor may stem from differences in the level of medical choices.

A majority of patients in the high-income bracket, regardless of gender, received treatment at the nation’s top four general hospitals while people in the lower-income group usually went to regional hospitals or clinics.

The widening medical inequality is likely to be passed on to patients’ children.

The percentage of male students who believed they were unhealthy was higher in the group of respondents who had poorly educated fathers than the group of children with highly educated fathers.

The smoking rate of male students whose fathers had a low level of education was 8.5 percentage points higher than the comparison group.

Another relevant report found health inequality linked to educational background.

According to the report by Chung Choi Kyong-hee, a professor at Ewha Womans University, the death rate of poorly educated female cancer patients aged between 30 and 44 was 8.1 times higher than those with a college diploma.

The likelihood of men with low educational levels committing suicide was 7.1 times higher than that of well-educated men, the report added.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)