Underpinned by the budgetary and organizational resources made available via the legislation of the National Health Promotion Act in 1995 and the subsequent launch of the National Health Promotion Fund in 1997, the Korean government embarked in 2002 on the National Health Promotion Plan (Health Plan), a national master plan that guides the implementation of mid-to-long-term policies on disease prevention and health promotion.
The Health Plan sets national-level health visions and goals, and presents strategies for achieving them. Every decade or so since 2002, the master plan has come out renewed, followed by two 5-year plans that update revisions made to it. As the 4th 5-year Health Plan ended in 2020 and the 3rd 10-year Health Plan was launched earlier this year, it is high time now to take a close look at how the latest Health Plan should be implemented for disease prevention and health promotion for Koreans in the post-covid-19 era. Many of the health promotion programs as planned in the Health Plan 2030 consist of services of the type that are delivered in the traditional in-person settings in public health centers in cities, counties and boroughs. However, as it is hard in the current covid-19 situation to expect that these programs will be delivered in ways they were intended, ways should be sought, by means of strengthening the monitoring of progress, of keeping the Health Plan 2030 on track.