Assessing health sector climate vulnerability in 226 local entities of South Korea based on principal component analysis

This study aims to construct composite indices for health sector climate vulnerability in 226 local entities of South Korea from 2011 to 2018 using principal component analysis methods. After calculating exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity indices respectively, which comprises a function of vulnerability, the composite indices for climate vulnerability are drawn. GIS maps visualize each index to provide more intuitive information on year-by-year transition in the 226 local entities, as well as to identify the proper local conditions in responding to climate change in the health sector more effectively. The overall tendency from 2011 to 2018 in each local entity is quite consistent without remarkable transition. Therefore, this overcomes the limitation of using cross-sectional data when conducting a measurement study. Local entities in major cities and municipalities in South Korea appear to be low in vulnerability to climate change in the health sector thanks to their low sensitivity with less vulnerable population and high adaptive capacity with a good health infrastructure. Nevertheless, there are quite a few exceptional cases among the cities and municipalities observed. This demonstrates why climate vulnerability assessment should be implemented at the local context, rather than through a top-down manner, as such exceptional cases could be overlooked in top-down approaches. This study provides a policy contribution to both central and local governments to fill gaps in current adaptation plans. In addition, the established micro-level time-series dataset for PCA analysis can contribute to further research in the future.