The burden and predictors of latent tuberculosis infection among immigrants in South Korea: a retrospective cross-sectional study

Background Approximately one-fourth of the global population is latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. An understanding of the burden of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) among immigrants compared with the general Korean population should be the first step in identifying priority groups for LTBI diagnosis and treatment. The study aimed to compute the age-standardized LTBI prevalence and predictors among immigrants with LTBI in South Korea. Methods In 2018, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency implemented a pilot LTBI screening project for immigrants using a chest radiography and the QuantiFERON Gold In-Tube assay. A standardized prevalence ratio (SPR) was computed to compare the LTBI burden in immigrants and the general Korean population. Results During the duration of the project, a total of 8108 immigrants (5134 males and 2974 females) underwent LTBI screening. The SPR of 1.547 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.468–1.629) in males and 1.261 (95% CI 1.177–1.349) in females were both higher than the Korean reference population. Furthermore, among the immigrants, those aged < 40 years and Korean diaspora visa holders had a higher SPR. Conclusion This study found a higher LTBI prevalence among immigrant population in South Korea compared to that in the general Korean population, and the SPR was higher among those aged < 40 years and the Korean diaspora. The findings can be used as baseline evidence for including immigrants in South Korea in the at-risk group with a priority need for LTBI screening and treatment.

Challenging the “Hierarchy of Nationhood”: Diasporic Entitlement and the Case of Korean Chinese (Chosŏnjok) in South Korea

With about 7.5 million people, the Korean diaspora is concentrated in China, Japan, North America, and the former Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, many ethnic Koreans have been “returning” to South Korea, their putative ethnic homeland. Significantly, their treatment by the state has been unequal: On issues of residency and employment rights, ethnic Koreans from China (Chosŏnjok) and the former Soviet Union were relegated to second-class status compared to those from North America. This inequality is encapsulated in the phrase, used by a number of scholars, the “hierarchy of nationhood.” Surprisingly, perhaps, the Chosŏnjok community challenged this unequal treatment by asserting rights based on colonial victimhood, ethnic sameness, and cultural authenticity. While such expressions of entitlement are not unusual among marginalized diasporic groups, the Chosŏnjok achieved something remarkable, namely, they succeeded in gaining political and economic rights initially denied by the Korean state. Simply put, they successfully challenged the hierarchy of nationhood. Using a discursive institutional framework, we endeavor to explain how and why entitlement claims by the Chosŏnjok were effective. More specifically, we argue that the struggle by Chosŏnjok to overturn the hierarchy of nationhood had little to nothing to do with a coercive, dyadic power struggle against the Korean state, but was instead a fundamentally discursive struggle, which itself is a product or reflection of discursive agency, both on the part of Chosŏnjok but also, crucially, on the part of their key allies—religious leaders and civic organizations—in South Korea.

Ideas, Discourse, and the Microfoundations of South Korea’s Diasporic Engagement: Explaining the Institutional Embrace of Ethnic Koreans Since the 1990s

This article endeavors to explain South Korea’s institutional turn to “diaspora engagement,” which began in earnest in the late 1990s. This shift can easily be attributed to instrumentalist calculations on the part of the South Korean state, i.e., as an effort to “tap into” or exploit the human and capital resources of ethnic Koreans living outside of the country. But instrumental calculations and interests, while significant and clearly proximate, were not the only nor necessarily the most important (causal) factors at play. Using a discursive institutional and microfoundational approach, we argue that underlying the institutional shift to diaspora engagement, was both an intentional and unintentional reframing of the Korean diaspora as “brethren” and “national assets,” a powerful discursive combination. This reframing did not come about automatically but was instead pushed forward by sentient or discursive agents, including Chŏng Chu-yŏng (the founder of Hyundai) and Yi Kwang-gyu, who was a Seoul National University professor and later the third president of the Overseas Koreans Foundation. Journalists, religious leaders and other activists within South Korea’s NGO community, as well as ethnic Koreans themselves, also played key roles as discursive agents in this reframing process. Central to our discursive institutional and microfoundational approach is the assertion that ideas and discourse were key causal factors in the institutional shift to South Korea’s engagement with the Korean diaspora.