This study originated from the awareness of the problem that dementia is emerging as a structural policy agenda at the urban level beyond the burden of individual and family care in Seoul, which has entered a super-aged society. In particular, it was ...
This study originated from the awareness of the problem that dementia is emerging as a structural policy agenda at the urban level beyond the burden of individual and family care in Seoul, which has entered a super-aged society. In particular, it was noted that there is a lack of empirical research on how central government policies are discussed, institutionalized, and implemented at the level of local governments and local councils after the introduction of the dementia national responsibility system. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the meeting minutes of the plenary session from the 9th (2014–2018) to the early 11th (2022–2024), the standing committee, and the budget and settlement special committee to find out the discussion structure and policy development process of Seoul's dementia policy. The research data collected dementia-related conference records from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2024, through an integrated search on the Seoul Metropolitan Council website, and used previous studies and policy reports as auxiliary data. As an analysis method, major keywords and discussion patterns were quantitatively derived through text mining and natural language processing-based frequency analysis, and content analysis and descriptive interpretation reflecting the context by committee and period were parallel. Through this, it was analyzed in multi-layered terms what agenda, what administrative and financial devices, and within what discourse structure the dementia policy was formed, adjusted, and institutionalized. As a result of the study, since 2015, dementia-related texts and keywords have increased about five times higher than in 2014, and since then, they have increased steadily, and were discussed the most in 2018. After that, it gradually began to decrease again, and in 2024, it showed a lower number than in 2015, when discussions began to increase. Related keywords were mentioned in the order of dementia patients, wide-area dementia centers, dementia prevention, dementia elderly, and dementia safety centers. These texts showed the highest frequency of the Health and Welfare Committee through plenary sessions, standing committees, and executive meetings, followed by the Administrative and Autonomous Commission and the Planning and Economy Commission. The proportion of meetings with related texts and keywords mentioned was the highest frequency by the Health and Welfare Committee, and all but one of the top 10 lawmakers who mentioned meaningful texts related to dementia were members of the Health and Welfare Committee. As a result of the analysis, the discussion of the Seoul Metropolitan Council's dementia policy showed a three-step development path. First, the 9th Congress (2014–2018) defined dementia as a social disaster and public responsibility centered on the Health and Welfare Committee as a public response period and focused on establishing an institutional basis such as prevention and early screening, support for dementia families, and preparation for the conversion of dementia relief centers. Second, the 10th Congress (2018-2022), along with the implementation of the dementia national responsibility system, expanded hardware infrastructure such as the establishment of all autonomous districts and the expansion of public nursing facilities, expanded the agenda to include welfare, economy, culture and education. Third, the first half of the 11th Congress (2022-2024) is an in-depth stage to improve the quality of care based on the built infrastructure, focusing on strengthening the professional human resource system, VR and AI-based digital health care, urban healing models combining natural and cultural resources such as healing agriculture, companion plants, and urban green spaces, and expansion of dementia family support centers and advanced disappearance prevention systems. These results show that the Seoul Metropolitan Government's dementia policy has developed in line with the continuous trajectory of raising the need, laying the foundation for institutional foundations (9th generation), expanding physical and institutional infrastructure (10th generation), deepening qualitative and convergence and converting to urban integration policies (11th generation). This study has academic significance in that it presents the process and structural characteristics of dementia policies for the first time through systematic analysis of the first policy text called local council minutes.