Traditional Korean Medicine Use and Medical Costs for Cancer Patients in Korea

374 cancer patients from the 2016 Korean Health Panel Survey were analyzed after propensity score matching. The dataset supports research on the economic impact of Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM), showing its use was associated with reduced complementary and alternative medicine costs but not with Western medicine costs. Findings suggest a need for policies promoting evidence-based TKM use to improve healthcare cost efficiency.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relationship between traditional medicine use and complementary medicine costs based on propensity score matched groups
• Investigating cost-saving effects of institutionalized traditional medicine among long-term cancer survivors
• Modeling healthcare expenditure drivers for cancer patients using generalized linear models and marginal effects

Strengths

• Dataset is derived from a national panel survey (Korean Health Panel Survey), providing a structured population sample
• Analysis employs a rigorous matching methodology (1:2 propensity score matching) to ensure group comparability
• Openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0, facilitating reuse and redistribution

Limitations

• Column names and a precise row count are not provided, limiting understanding of the data structure
• The dataset appears to be supplementary material (DOCX format), which may not be in an analysis-ready tabular format
• Temporal coverage is unclear; the study uses survey data from 2016 and cost data from 2017-2018, but the dataset's time range is not explicitly stated

Provenance

Source

Korean Health Panel Survey (KHPS), 2016

Collection Method

Secondary analysis using propensity score matching and generalized linear models on survey data

Time Range

2016-2018

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-03-21 according to platform metadata.

Geography

South Korea