Health promotion and the non-smoking policy in Korea

摘要

According to the World Health Report 2000 released by WHO, Korea's healthy life expectancy is 62.3 years for men and 67.7 years for women, coming 51st in the report. The report further says that on average, Korean men and women suffer from diseases for over 6.4 and 8.3 years respectively in life thus, restricting them in everyday activities (WHO, 2000). These situations are on average 9.5 and 5.2 years less than the healthy life expectancy of the Japanese (74.5), and the OECD average (70.2), respectively. Since the recent health problems stem mainly from inappropriate lifestyles and dietary habits the healthcare system of the past, which had focused on the provision of reactive and curative services, has been considered to have limitations in its capacity to address these problems (KIHASA, 2001). Now the health care system requires more preventive and proactive policies toward health promotion. Likewise, in the past, diseases arising from smoking and the lack of exercise were entirely attributed to individuals themselves, but now the government accepts equal responsibility for helping people in relation to preventing smoking, abstaining from drinking, exercise and cultivating healthy lifestyles.