Socioeconomic Factors and Health Disparities Among North Korean Refugee Populations

To what extent do standard socioeconomic factors explain health disparities in a minoritized youth population that shares ethnicity and citizenship with the host society?In this cross-sectional study of 876 693 adolescents, youths of North Korean refugee origin living in South Korea exhibited 4-fold higher suicide attempts and 10-fold higher drug use than peers. Conventional socioeconomic factors accounted for less than 10% of these disparities.These findings suggest standard socioeconomic frameworks may not fully capture fundamental drivers of inequality in integrated minoritized populations, indicating a need to address unmeasured structural determinants beyond economic support.

Corresponding Author: Yo Han Lee, MD, PhD, Department of Preventive Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine, 73, Goryeodae-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea (vionic@korea.ac.kr).

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