Health Inequalities Policy in Korea: Current Status and Future Challenges

Abstract

In recent years, health inequalities have become an important public health concern and the subject of both research and policy attention in Korea. Government reports, as well as many epidemiological studies, have provided evidence that a wide range of health outcomes and health-related behaviors are socioeconomically patterned, and that the magnitude of health inequalities is even increasing. However, except for the revised Health Plan 2010 targets for health equity, few government policies have explicitly addressed health inequalities. Although a number of economic and social policies may have had an impact on health inequalities, such impact has scarcely been evaluated. In this review, we describe the current status of research and policy on health inequalities in Korea. We also suggest future challenges of approaches and policies to reduce health inequalities and highlight the active and intensive engagement of many policy sectors and good evidence for interventions that will make meaningful reduction of health inequalities possible.

Five-Year Overall Survival of Interval Breast Cancers is Better than Non- Interval Cancers from Korean Breast Cancer Registry

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Forty years of economic growth and plummeting mortality: the mortality experience of the poorly educated in South Korea

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Fifty years of Asian experience in the spread of education and healthcare

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