Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to reconceptualize health policy as an integrated social safety and risk governance framework rather than a sector confined to medical service provision. It addresses the growing tendency of health risks—such as infectious disease outbreaks, healthcare access disparities, and systemic disruptions in essential medical services—to cascade into broader social risks affecting labor markets, welfare systems, public safety, and societal stability. Research design, data and methodology: The study adopts a qualitative, design-oriented research approach grounded in institutional analysis and normative policy design. Instead of empirical measurement, it develops a conceptual and institutional framework for integrated risk management, focusing on governance architecture, policy triggers, coordination mechanisms, and performance evaluation structures applicable to complex and high-uncertainty environments. Results: The analysis identifies four interdependent pillars of effective health risk governance: prevention of health-to-social risk transfer, integration of health and welfare policies to mitigate vulnerability among high-risk populations and regions, institutionalized coordination among health systems, disaster safety, public safety, border management, and local governance, and performance evaluation mechanisms based on social safety indicators rather than conventional input–output metrics. The results demonstrate that fragmented, sector-based health governance structures are structurally inadequate to prevent cascading social risks. Conclusions: The study concludes that these four pillars operate cumulatively as a unified governance architecture that enables health policy to function as a core infrastructure of health security and social resilience. It implies that health policy effectiveness must be assessed by its capacity to reduce social vulnerability and stabilize interconnected systems, providing a normative foundation for redesigning health governance beyond traditional administrative and medical paradigms.