Jeonbuk Residents' Chronic Disease Health Indicators 'Improvement'

Jeonbuk Province Evaluated Positively for Expanding Health Service Provision

[Jeonju=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Han-ho] Jeollabuk-do has significantly improved health indicators, including a decrease in mortality rates, as a result of providing health management services for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes to protect the health and lives of its residents.

The satisfaction rate for services such as health management programs exceeded 95%, indicating very high responsiveness from patients and their families.

According to the recently released "Cause of Death Statistics" by Statistics Korea, the diabetes mortality rate in Jeollabuk-do decreased continuously for eight consecutive years, from 15.2 per 100,000 people in 2012 to 5.8 last year. In 2020, the province ranked 15th nationwide, showing a low diabetes mortality rate within the region.

The awareness rate of blood sugar levels also increased steadily from 20.2% in 2018, the time of the survey, to 28.9% in 2020, confirming that residents' health awareness is improving.

Additionally, the mortality rate from hypertensive diseases in Jeollabuk-do decreased for four consecutive years, from 6.3 per 100,000 people in 2016 to 4.0 in 2020. Although it was once ranked 4th highest nationwide, it dropped to 11th in 2020.

Cancer mortality was relatively high at 94.3 per 100,000 people in 2018 (7th nationwide), compared to the national average of 92.1, but the mortality rate decreased to 85.5 in 2020 (13th nationwide), which is lower than the national average of 87.9.

Chronic diseases refer to pathological conditions where specific diseases persist chronically for more than three months. The World Health Organization (WHO) designates cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, and cancer as major chronic diseases due to their high global disease burden.

The significant improvement in chronic disease-related indicators in the province is analyzed to be due to Jeollabuk-do’s focused administrative efforts on health management services since the 7th local government term, implementing various projects targeting chronic disease patients to further secure residents' health rights.

Currently, 14 city and county public health centers in the province are regularly communicating with chronic disease patients through the hypertension and diabetes patient registration management project, continuously managing health risk factors.

A total of 171,646 patients are registered in the hypertension and diabetes patient registration management project, receiving systematic management including chronic disease counseling, education, and exercise.

In addition, Jeollabuk-do is making every effort to prevent chronic diseases by establishing a chronic disease surveillance system through integrated healthy lifestyle practice projects including alcohol reduction, physical activity, obesity, and nutrition programs, visiting health management for vulnerable groups, home cancer patient management projects, and chronic disease specialist training projects.

Jeonju=Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Han-ho stonepeak@asiae.co.kr

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.