OECD Reviews of Public Health: Korea
A Healthier Tomorrow
This review assesses Korea's public health system, highlights areas of strength and weakness, and makes a number of recommendations for improvement. The review examines Korea's public health system architecture, and how well policies are responding to population health challenges, including the growing burden of chronic disease, and resulting pressures on the health system. In particular, the review assesses Korea’s policies to prevent harmful alcohol use, and the risks and opportunities around public health genomics in Korea, which is both a growing field in the health sector, and a booming commercial industry. The review also examines Korea's exposure to public health emergencies, and capacity to respond to emergencies as and when they occur.
Assessment and recommendations
Compared to the OECD average, the Korean population is relatively young and rate of behavioural risk factors relatively low. The system has, up until now, been focused on curative, rather than preventive care. However, rapid demographic shift, emerging risk factors linked to lifestyle, and an increasing burden of chronic diseases mean that prevention and public health should be a decisive policy priority sooner rather than later. The proportion of frail elderly is still low compared to OECD peers, with just 13.8% of the population over 65, and 3.0% over 80, in 2017. But Korea’s population is aging very rapidly, and by 2050 Korea is projected to have the largest over-65 population in the OECD, with 38% of people aged 65 years or over up from 13.8% in 2017, and 15.1% of the population 80 or over, up from 3.0% in 2017. While alcohol consumption and tobacco use are both slightly below the OECD average, and adult obesity is well below the OECD average, men are both heavy smokers and drinkers and child obesity rates are above the OECD average.
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