By Kim Rahn

In Seoul, money seems to be the main factor in health, as disparity in income causes a divide.

Seoul City said Tuesday that citizens in affluent areas lived longer compared to those in underprivileged ones.

Seocho District showed the lowest death rate, with 335 per 100,000 people dying a year on average between 2005 and 2010.

It was followed by Gangnam and Songpa — the three districts are considered the most affluent in the capital.

But Jungnang saw the largest number of deaths, 469 among 100,000 citizens, followed by Geumcheon, Dongdaemun, Gangbuk and Nowon — northern regions where a large number of the lower-income brackets live.

These were parts of the study the city government conducted to see the health gap among its 25 districts.

“Jungnang and those districts have shown high death rates for the past decade. When reviewing 424 ‘dongs,’ or townships, more than 70 percent of those in the bottom 10 percent of death rates were in the three affluent districts of Seocho, Gangnam and Songpa,” a city official said.

The death rates also differed between those who were highly-educated and people who weren’t.

For female adults between 30 and 64 years old, 346 out of 100,000 people with middle school or lower-level diplomas died in 2009, while 95 with college or higher-level diplomas died, marking a gap of 251.

The gap increased by 78 percent in the last decade — in 2000, 262 people with low educational background and 122 with high educational career died, respectively, a difference of 141.

For males, the gap grew by 12.9 percent.

In 2010, a 30-year-old man who graduated from middle school was expected to live 37.7 years more, while another 30-year-old who graduated from college was forecast to live 50.3 years more.

The disparity also became wider: in 2000, the expectancy was 36.1 years and 46.3 years for either level of education. The tendency was the same for women.

“The disparity in life expectancy mainly resulted from cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Those with high educational background usually earn higher incomes and such people usually have more frequent health checkups. This leads to earlier detection of cancer or other diseases,” the city official said.

People with lower education levels also generally showed a higher chance of delivering underweight babies, smoking, and committing suicide than people with higher education.

To solve the health disparity, the city government plans to provide more public medical services to the districts with higher death rates. It will also encourage lower-income brackets to undergo checkups for cancer and to quit smoking.