Health in Korea
South Korea's economy grew rapidly after its recovery from the Korean war (1950-53). This growth was accompanied by changes in lifestyle, that included the rapid introduction of a more western diet, with the growth of fast-food restaurants, especially after South Korea hosted the 1988 Olympics (Skolnik, 2019).
​
Since the Korean War, medical services increased tremendously. Most people have some sort of health insurance. Public health and sanitation have greatly improved, reducing the rate of epidemics (Hahn & Im, 2020). Since the 1950s, life expectancy rose dramatically, death rates have more than halved, and infant mortality have sharply declined (Hahn & Im, 2020).
​
The government mostly provides basic welfare services such as public pensions, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation and health insurance, and public assistance (Hahn & Im, 2020). United Nations agencies, civilian and military agencies of the United States, and private volunteer agencies played a significant role in the steadily improving living conditions in South Korea (Hahn & Im, 2020). Despite all improvements, disparities still exist in the battle of quality of life in rural communities.
Main Causes of Mortality
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the main cause of death in South Korea is cancer followed by cardiac diseases, stroke, and pneumonia.
The most common types of cancers include thyroid, stomach, large intestinal, lung, but not limited to other malignant neoplasms.
In comparison to the US, the leading cause of death among Americans is heart disease. Following in the order of cancer, unintentional accidents, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and stroke.
Obesity
in South Korea
According to the text, Sholnik states that "Obesity rates in Korea today remain the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), at 5.3 of the adult population. However, one in three adults in Korea are overweight" (2019).Â
Contributing factors include cultural diet aspects of maintaining a low fat, high vegetable traditional diet. Sholnik also states that the low levels of fat intake and obesity are found to be largely due to programs led by the government and private organizations to encourage the retention of the traditional Korean diet. Traditional diets make up the menus in schools for school aged children.
Local governments hold public educational events while the Korean Dietetic Association (KDA) provide nutrition education through seminars are obesity camps, aided nutrition services at health centers, and education that is also often offered online (Sholnik, 2019).Â
Along with the abundance of health education, Korea highly emphasizes the adherence of the traditional South Koran diet because of its postive health outcomes.
Smoking
Rates in South Korea
While Western smoking rates have fallen, this is not the case for many Asian countries. In South Korea, approximately 40%–50% of men and 4%–8% of women have been identified as smokers.Â
Generally, Anti-smoking health care policies have not been as aggressively promoted in South Korea as in other countries. While South Korea has one of the longest life expectacnies in the industrialized countries, the rate of smoking remains high.
Contributing factors may include the low cost of cigarettes (roughly about 2.20 USD), scarce anti smoking campaigns, and social factors that encourage smoking (Gunter, Szeto, Jeong, Suh, & Waters, 2020).
While there is still much work to do in decreasing smoking rates in Korea, there have been some anti-smoking regulations such as inflation of price and increased taxation of tobacco products (even though still cheaper compared to US counterparts (Gunter, Szeto, Jeong, Suh, & Waters, 2020).
