Current status of health promotion in Korea

Background: Health promotion can be defined as a process that allows individuals to control and improve their health. However, the term health promotion is used narrowly, it focuses on healthy lifestyle changes and behavioral risk factors such as nutrition, exercise, and stress management. Health promotion involves not only medicine and health but also a wide range of related areas such as policies, finances, and climate change measures. Nonetheless the medical field continues to play a/the leading role in health promotion.Current Concepts: The Korean government’s comprehensive national health promotion plan has implemented mid-to long-term health promotion policies under the National Health Promotion Act. From 2002, this project establishes a new goal every 10 years and prepares a supplementary plan every five years. Another initiative is the community health survey by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, which has been conducted since 2007. This survey provides data on basic health behavior and status, including physical measurement, smoking, obesity, drinking, diet, medicine use, disease, vaccination, health knowledge, accidents, and visits to medical institutions. Research on health promotion in Korea is available from the KoreaMed database.Discussion and Conclusion: While Korea’s health promotion status has seen rapid improvement in the past, the degree of improvement has recently been marginal and risks stagnating, the degree of improvement has recently been marginal and risks stagnating and the role of medical professionals is an essential.