J Korean Med Sci.  2017 Nov;32(11):1764-1770. 10.3346/jkms.2017.32.11.1764.

Using the National Health Information Database of the National Health Insurance Service in Korea for Monitoring Mortality and Life Expectancy at National and Local Levels

• Bahk J
• Kim YY
• Kang HY
• Lee J
• Kim I
• Lee J
• Yun SC
• Park JH
• Shin SA
• Khang YH

• KMID: 2390301
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.11.1764

Abstract

This study explores whether the National Health Information Database (NHID) can be used to monitor health status of entire population in Korea. We calculated the crude mortality rate and life expectancy (LE) at birth across the national, provincial, and municipal levels using the NHID eligibility database from 2004 to 2015, and compared the results with the corresponding values obtained from the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS) of Statistics Korea. The study results showed that the ratio of crude mortality rate between the two data was 0.99. The absolute difference between the LE of the two data was not more than 0.5 years, and did not exceed 0.3 years in gender specific results. The concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) between the crude mortality rates from NHID and the rates from KOSIS ranged 0.997-0.999 among the municipalities. For LE, the CCC between the NHID and KOSIS across the municipalities were 0.990 in 2004-2009 and 0.985 in 2010-2015 among men, and 0.952 in 2004-2009 and 0.914 in 2010-2015 among women, respectively. Overall, the NHID was a good source for monitoring mortality and LE across national, provincial, and municipal levels with the population representativeness of entire Korean population. The results of this study indicate that NHID may well contribute to the national health promotion policy as a part of the health and health equity monitoring system.

Keyword

Life Expectancy; National Health Information Database; National Health Insurance Service; Statistics Korea; Mortality; Population

MeSH Terms

Female
Health Equity
Health Promotion
Humans
Information Services
Korea*
Life Expectancy*
Male
Mortality*
National Health Programs*
Parturition

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Comparison of local districts' crude mortality rate between the NHID and the KOSIS in selected years among overall population. NHID = National Health Information Database, KOSIS = Korean Statistical Information Service.

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  Fig. 2 Comparison of local districts' LE at birth between the NHID and the KOSIS in 2004–2009 and 2010–2015 among overall population. LE = life expectancy, NHID = National Health Information Database, KOSIS = Korean Statistical Information Service.

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