The cancer mortality rate is higher in rural areas than in cities, a report said Sunday, suggesting a lack of ready access to medical services as one of the key factors.
The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs said in the report that nearly 1.4 times more rural residents died from cancer in 2011 than city-dwellers.
The report showed the age-standardized death rate for people dying of cancer and other related diseases living in cities fell to 16.88 out of 100,000 people in 2011 from 17.97 in 2008. The corresponding figure rose to 23 in 2011 from 22.67 in 2008 in rural areas over the cited period.
The age standardized mortality rate devised by the World Health Organization is used to compare the mortality rates without data being affected by age distribution differences between groups being checked.
The gap between the two areas has been widening, the report said.
Rural residents also faced higher rates of health-related problems including infectious disease, digestive system diseases, heart and lung disease and metabolic disease. But they spent less money compared to their urban counterparts on the national medical insurance program, showing that rural areas tend to get less medical attention than big cities.
The underlying reason is that rural areas do not have enough medical facilities and services, the report said, leading to fewer life-saving cancer treatments or timely medical checkups.
The government should set up more medical facilities in rural counties in consideration of the growing number of elderly people outside of big cities, the report added.
The report was based on a survey on 227 administrative regions in the country from 2008 to 2011.
According to the report, the average mortality rate in South Korea stood at 753.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 2011, which is 7.8 percent lower than the average of 813.2 deaths among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
By Kim Da-sol and news reports ()
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
