citation

J. Stephen Morrison and Victor Cha. "The Impossible State Podcast: The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea." CSIS Commission on Strengthening America's Health Security, Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 02, 2018. Accessed December 21, 2023. https://healthsecurity.csis.org/articles/the-impossible-state-podcast-the-gathering-health-storm-inside-north-korea/

J. Stephen Morrison and Victor Cha discuss the bleak health realities in North Korea, an understudied part of the larger problem of potential instability on the Korean peninsula and a potential health security threat.

Photo Credit: GARY RAMAGE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

This podcast with J. Stephen Morrison and Victor Cha, recorded for the CSIS podcast The Impossible State, a podcast on North Korea, illuminates the challenges of the disordered world for health security through the case of North Korea.

The bleak health realities of North Korea are an understudied part of the larger problem of potential instability on the Korean peninsula. North Korea has an exceptionally high rate of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), an estimated 42% of its population is undernourished, and at least 3 in 10 North Korean citizens are stunted. From a health security standpoint, these are just a few of the health issues that can pose an immediate threat to the surrounding region, especially through the possibility that conflict in North Korea could ignite a mass exodus of North Korean refugees carrying infectious diseases such as MDR-TB into South Korea and China. In this podcast, Commission Secretariat Director and CSIS Senior Vice President and Global Health Policy Center Director J. Stephen Morrison joins Victor Cha, CSIS Senior Adviser and Korea Chair, to discuss the health crisis in North Korea. The discussion followed the release of a new Commission film, The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea.

Hosted by H. Andrew Schwartz. Produced and edited by Yumi Araki.