Health Security and North Korea: Film Screening and Discussion
"Health Security and North Korea: Film Screening and Discussion." 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/events/health-security-and-north-korea-film-screening-and-discussion/
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.
On Monday, October 29, 2018, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security hosted a screening of its new film, The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea, followed by a roundtable discussion with regional experts and providers of humanitarian assistance moderated by film co-director and Commission Secretariat Director J. Stephen Morrison. The expert panel included: Shanelle Hall, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director; Victor Cha, CSIS Senior Adviser and Korea Chair; Kee B. Park, Harvard Medical School Paul Farmer Global Surgery Scholar; Sue Mi Terry, CSIS Korea Chair Senior Fellow; Nancy Lindborg, United States Institute of Peace President; and Jon Brause, World Food Programme Washington Office Director.