Over the past 10 years, the overall death rate in Seoul continued to decline but pneumonia deaths, one of the key health indicators, rather increased, a government report showed.

The Seoul Health Foundation (SHF), run under the Seoul Metropolitan Government, released a report analyzing changes in the health status of people living in Seoul between 2010 and 2020.

For a decade, the SHF has been monitoring health gaps in Seoul to identify the socioeconomic level and major health problems of Seoul citizens.

The SHF report analyzed social structural factors, intervention factors, and health outcomes with 17 indicators.

Seoul’s total death rate, the key health outcome, fell to 272.3 per 100,000 population in 2019 from 372.6 per 100,000 in 2010.

The cancer death rate also declined from 114.1 to 87.8 per 100,000 during the same period. The cardiovascular mortality rate also went down from 30.1 to 26.9 per 100,000. The cerebrovascular disease death rate decreased by 17.2 per 100,000.

The death rate caused by suicide in Seoul also fell from 24.9 in 2010 to 19.1 in 2019.

In contrast, the pneumonia death rate increased from 10.9 per 100,000 in 2010 to 16.8 per 100,000 in 2019.

Seoul’s obesity rate is up, high-risk drinking rate is down

Among the intervention factors that have a direct impact on health, the obesity rate in Seoul has increased over the past decade.

The obesity rate in Seoul went up from 21.4 percent in 2010 to 28.8 percent in 2020.

The high-risk drinking rate also declined from 12 percent in 2010 to 9.5 percent in 2020, apparently affected by decreased outdoor activities in recent years amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The smoking rate also improved from 23.6 percent in 2010 to 16.5 percent in 2020.

The rate of moderate or higher physical activity practice also slightly increased from 18.5 percent to 19 percent during the same period.

Seoul's population shrank but vulnerable population grew

Although the total population of Seoul decreased over the past 10 years, the proportion of vulnerable population groups such as the elderly and recipients of basic livelihood subsidies continued to increase.

The population of Seoul declined from 10.31 million in 2010 to 9.66 million in 2020.

However, the proportion of the population of the elderly, single-person households, and recipients of basic livelihood subsidies – who are more vulnerable to health risks than the general population – increased by 6.4 percentage points, 10.5 percentage points, and 1.7 percentage points, respectively.