Drawing on critical discourse analysis of Canadian press coverage of the immigrant tuberculosis problem, we expose the complex relationship between press-constructed discourses of immigrant health and current tuberculosis control policies in Canada. The focus of these policies is on screening and surveillance of immigrants rather than addressing social inequalities underlying the problem of immigrant tuberculosis. The biomedical focus and racializing character of current policies were reinforced in the Canadian press by depicting tuberculosis as a biomedical (rather than a social) disease imported to Canada by immigrants. The status of the immigrant body as health threat was produced by and through preexisting and mutually constitutive racializing and medicalizing discourses materialized in press coverage and tuberculosis control policies. Deracialization and demedicalization of health information disseminated in the press are potentially important factors to be considered when revising health policies that would address the socioeconomic and political factors that determine the health status of Canadian immigrants. © The Author(s) 2012.

communication Tuberculosis (TB) Immigrants / migrants Medicalization Racism Discourse analysis

perception publication social psychology psychological aspect health care policy health disparity Health Status Disparities Continental Population Groups human statistics ethnology qualitative research Humans lung tuberculosis Canada Tuberculosis, Pulmonary Emigrants and Immigrants Socioeconomic Factors socioeconomics race Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice Article Newspapers migration Prejudice politics Health Policy Social Perception attitude to health