Nowon-gu Wins AFHC Healthy City Award for Second Consecutive Time

Nowon-gu in Seoul has won the Healthy City Award with Good Dynamic at the 2026 World Congress of the Alliance for Healthy Cities in the Western Pacific, the district announced.

The award marks Nowon-gu's second consecutive recognition from the Alliance for Healthy Cities, following the Healthy City Award with Good Infrastructure it received in 2024.

While the 2024 award recognized the district's work in building the foundations for its healthy city program, this year's honor reflects its success in embedding health considerations into actual district policies and sustaining a cycle of review and improvement.

Since launching its healthy city program in 2018, Nowon-gu has treated health not as a concern confined to the public health sector but as a key standard to be integrated across a wide range of policies that touch residents' daily lives.

A flagship example is the district's own health impact assessment system. In 2022, Nowon-gu became the first local government in the country to institutionalize regular health impact assessments, examining how major district projects affect residents' health and health disparities and incorporating the findings into policy improvements. Through this process, the district revised eligibility criteria for a jobs program targeting low-income single-person households and broadened protections for vulnerable groups in its climate adaptation plans by factoring in health, housing and employment conditions.

The district's urban health monitoring system, which tracks residents' health through data on an ongoing basis, also drew favorable assessments. Since 2023, Nowon-gu has continuously analyzed not only health behaviors and outcomes but also a range of factors that influence residents' health — including green space, walkability, housing, employment and social networks. The findings serve as baseline data for identifying health disparities across neighborhoods and informing future policy priorities.

The leadership of the district mayor and the active involvement of residents and experts were also cited as key strengths of Nowon-gu's healthy city approach. The district operates a healthy city steering committee that includes members of the district council, academia and civil society, along with an advisory panel of 21 specialists across nine fields. It also works with resident organizations such as community self-governance councils and a youth policy network to create channels through which residents can raise health concerns directly and participate in the policymaking process.

At the world congress, Nowon-gu stood out as the only local government in South Korea to present two best-practice cases. The district shared its experience institutionalizing health impact assessments at the local government level and its efforts to expand resident participation in its healthy city program, bringing its model to an international audience.

"This award is especially meaningful because it recognizes Nowon's efforts to move beyond building the foundations of a healthy city policy and translate them into real changes in residents' lives," District Mayor Seo Jun-o said. "We will continue to treat health as a central standard across all district affairs and keep improving our policies and environment so that every resident can enjoy a healthier daily life."