A comparison of disease burden and the government budget for mental health in Korea

Abstract

Background

The lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in South Korea was 25.4% in 2016. The Act on Mental Health enabled the expansion of psychiatric facilities; however, resources were allocated without considering the population structure or the characteristics of mental health problems.

Aims

This paper investigates the status and trends of disease burden and the government budget for Korean mental health.

Methods

The burden of mental and behavioral disorders (MBDs) was measured using the incidence-based disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and the mental health budget data was from the Ministry of Health and Welfare of South Korea.

Results

We estimated that the disease burden of MBDs accounted for 6.4% of the total disease burden, ranking as the seventh leading cause of Korean DALYs. The mental health budget in South Korea was USD 253.4 million in 2019 (USD 90.3 million from the general account, USD 65.8 million from the National Health Promotion Fund, and USD 97.3 million from the special account for the national mental hospitals).

Conclusions

Challenges are created by the MBD burden on the Korean healthcare system, and the budget is insufficient to address this disease burden, suggesting that resource allocation systems should be improved.

Keywords:

• Mental health
• mental and behavioral disorders
• burden of disease
• disability-adjusted life years
• government budget

Acknowledgements

This study was administratively supported by the National Health Insurance Service of Korea (NHIS-2019-1-182).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a grant for the Korea Health Technology R&D Project provided by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, funded by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea [Grant number: HI18C0446].