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Video: The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea

J. Stephen Morrison and Justin Kenny
Oct 29, 2018
citation

J. Stephen Morrison and Justin Kenny. "Video: The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea." CSIS Commission on Strengthening America's Health Security, Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 29, 2018. Accessed December 21, 2023. https://healthsecurity.csis.org/articles/video-the-gathering-health-storm-inside-north-korea/

The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea examines the rapid decay of North Korea’s health systems and the dangers it poses to neighboring countries, through interviews with experts on North Korea and health security and exclusive footage from inside the little-seen nation.

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

A nurse tends to new-born infants in a ward at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital during a government-organised media tour in Pyongyang on May 7, 2016.
A nurse tends to new-born infants in a ward at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital during a government-organised media tour in Pyongyang on May 7, 2016. Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

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. “The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea” is a new film presented by the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security, directed by J. Stephen Morrison and Justin Kenny.

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J. Stephen Morrison Senior Vice President and Director, Global Health Policy Center

J. Stephen Morrison is senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and director of its Global Health Policy Center. Dr. Morrison writes widely, has directed several high-level commissions, and is a frequent commentator on U.S. foreign policy, global health, Africa, and foreign assistance.

Justin Kenny Small Footprint Films

Justin Kenny is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and owner of Small Footprint Films- a news documentary production company. In 2017, he wrote and directed (with CSIS’s Stephen Morrison) _The New Barbarianism_ a CSIS Global Health Policy Center film about the rise in attacks on medical workers and other humanitarians in today’s wars. The film debuted on PBS in March 2018 and won first place in the Los Angeles Film Awards. From 2012-2015, Kenny led the PBS NewsHour’s international coverage as the program’s Foreign Editor/Senior Producer and won many prestigious awards including two Emmys, a George Foster Peabody Award and a National Headliner Award. He is currently filming and directing his first independent feature documentary, "The Boy From Serniki", a film about Holocaust survivor and war crimes prosecution witness Nathan Bobrov.

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