Objectives: This paper aims at addressing the importance of community-based health promotion. It would identify the origin of community health programs in Korea, which emphasized community involvement. And it would reveal the discontinuity of community-oriented health programs in the current health promotion activities. Finally, the methods of attaining community-based health promotion would be suggested. Results and Conclusion: Community-based health promotion had been implemented in rural areas by medical schools in the 1970s and 1980s, which emphasized the role of village health workers. But their roles has disappeared since the government-initiated health promotion policies and programs have been implemented in the mid-1990s. This paper addressed the factors contributing to this discontinuity, such as the expansion of heath insurance system, the change of health care discourses, the monopoly of resources for health promotion by government, and the bureaucratic approach to health promotion, etc. This paper suggested the utilization of voluntary and civic organizations in community for realizing the goal of community-based health promotion.