Son M, Kim HR, Choe SA, Ki M, Yong F, Park M, Paek D. Widening Social Inequalities in Cancer Mortality of Children Under 5 Years in Korea.
J Korean Med Sci 2023;
38:e20. [PMID:
36625176 PMCID:
PMC9829512 DOI:
10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e20]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2022] [Accepted: 10/12/2022] [Indexed: 01/05/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
To investigate the effect of parental social class on cancer mortality in children under 5 in Korea, two birth cohorts were constructed by linking national birth data to under-5 death data from the Statistics Korea for 1995-1999 (3,323,613 births) and 2010-2014 (2,297,876 births).
METHODS
The Cox proportional hazards model adjusted for covariates was used in this study.
RESULTS
Social inequalities of under-5 cancer mortality risk in paternal education and paternal employment status were greater in 2010-2014 than in 1995-1999. The gap of hazard ratio (HR) of under-5 cancer mortality between lower (high school or below) and higher (university or higher) paternal education increased from 1.23 (95% confidence interval, 1.041.46) in 1995-1999 to 1.45 (1.11-1.97) in 2010-2014; the gap of HR between parents engaged in manual work and non-manual work increased from 1.32 (1.12-1.56) in 1995-1999 to 1.45 (1.12-1.89) in 2010-2014 for fathers, and from 1.18 (0.7-1.98) to 1.69 (1.03-2.79) for mothers. When the parental social class was lower, the risk of under-5 cancer mortality was higher in not only adverse but normal births.
CONCLUSION
Social inequalities must be addressed to reduce the disparity in cancer mortality of children under 5 years old.
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