The Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and the National Health Insurance Service have formed a consortium and jointly carried out the Korea Health Panel Survey since 2008 to generate basic data on individual healthcare behaviors, health level, usage of health services, and healthcare expenditures.

In Korea, we are seeing rapid changes in healthcare due to growth of general income, the rapid increase in population ageing across the nation, high prevalence rates of chronic diseases, continuous development of medical technology, diversifying treatments, and expansion of health insurance coverages and private insurance. We, therefore, expect to witness a much higher rise in healthcare expenditures in the near future. Given the fact that there are currently limited data on individual medical expenditures including out-of-pocket payments, uninsured medical expenses, and over-the-counter drug spending, there is an increasing need for reliable data.

The Korea Health Panel Survey is most versatile in conducting multidisciplinary analyses of and research on multiple levels of and interactions between individual, social, and environmental elements with considerations for dynamic, complex, and circular structures of heath care expenditures. The data provides information on uninsured portion, pharmaceutical as well as private health insurance expenditures, which is quite unique for this data. Furthermore, the Korea Health Panel Survey enables an in-depth analysis of not only information on health services utilization and care expenditures, but also important factors affecting good healthcare and costly expenses across time.

We anticipate our data on healthcare expenditures and usage of health services to provide the basis for identifying changes in healthcare expenditures and to also lay the foundation for planning and improving healthcare policies. Our efforts will contribute to providing evidence-based approach in enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, and equality in healthcare services, as well as decreasing financial burden on healthcare, and ultimately, to ensuring state-of-the art healthcare and health insurance policy.

The development of Korea Health Panel would not have been possible without joint enthusiasm and expertise of researchers at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs and the National Health Insurance Service, as well as survey panel participants' voluntary cooperation.

We sincerely look forward to continued interest and support.