Researchers and public-health teams face a sparse, scattered evidence base on alcohol use among Korean immigrant women. This PLOS scoping review (Published July 14, 2026) found only seven eligible studies, all from the United States, and three repeatable sociocultural themes: acculturation, religion, and social networks. In this post you will get a concise, reproducible workflow for running a rigorous qualitative analysis of that corpus or your own transcripts and surveys, and see how Evidano maps fragmented papers into theme maps, cross-segment comparisons, and visual reports you can share with stakeholders.
Key Takeaways
Evidano is an AI-powered qualitative data analysis platform that ingests documents, auto-extracts metadata, and supports AI-assisted inductive theme analysis to harmonise qualitative corpora reproducibly.
The PLOS One scoping review (Published July 14, 2026) identified seven U.S. primary studies on alcohol use among Korean immigrant women and three dominant sociocultural themes: acculturation, religion, and social networks.
- The PLOS One scoping review screened 12, 547 records and used a last database search date of May 20, 2025; seven studies met inclusion criteria after screening and full-text review.
- The review consistently observed acculturation, religion, and social networks as primary influences on alcohol use among the included studies.
- Reported gaps include no eligible Canadian studies, inconsistent measurement of acculturation and stress, and uneven operationalisation of immigration stressors.
- Evidano can bulk import PDFs, transcripts, and coding sheets, auto-extract and normalise metadata, run AI-assisted inductive theme extraction, and export audit-ready visuals and reports.
Fast take: What the PLOS review found
The PLOS One scoping review mapped evidence on alcohol use among Korean immigrant women and identified seven primary studies, all from the United States, with three dominant sociocultural influences: acculturation, religion, and social networks.
Read the original paper: PLOS One.
- Searches screened 12, 547 records (four databases plus a Google Scholar supplement); most recent search date: May 20, 2025.
- After deduplication there were 37 records for title/abstract screening, 33 full texts assessed, and seven included studies.
- Gaps include no Canadian studies found, limited measurement consistency (especially for acculturation), and uneven operationalisation of immigration stressors.
Findings snapshot
| Metric | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| PLOS review publication | 14 July 2026 | Kim et al., PLOS One |
| Records retrieved | 12, 547 | Four bibliographic DBs + Google Scholar (supplement) |
| Records screened → included | 37 → 7 | 37 after dedupe; 7 met inclusion criteria |
| Countries represented | United States (7) | No eligible studies from Canada, UK, Australia, NZ |
| Major themes | Acculturation; Religion; Social networks | Consistently observed across included studies |
| Search date | May 20, 2025 | Last database search per methods |
FAQ: Qualitative analysis of Korean immigrant women & alcohol
What did the PLOS One scoping review find?
The PLOS One scoping review found seven primary studies, all from the United States, and three dominant sociocultural influences: acculturation, religion, and social networks.
The review screened 12, 547 records across multiple databases with a last search date of May 20, 2025, and after deduplication assessed 33 full texts and included seven studies that met inclusion criteria.
How many studies were included and where were they conducted?
The review included seven primary studies and all seven were conducted in the United States.
No eligible studies from Canada, the UK, Australia, or New Zealand were identified in the review.
What were the main themes and measurement gaps?
The main themes were acculturation, religion, and social networks, and the review identified inconsistent measurement of acculturation and immigration stressors across studies.
The review notes that inconsistent operationalisation of acculturation and stress limits meta-synthesis and comparative analysis.
How can researchers reproduce or extend the synthesis?
Researchers can reproduce the synthesis by collecting the sources and metadata, importing documents into a reproducible workflow, harmonising variables, running inductive theme extraction, and exporting visuals and audit trails.
The post provides a six-step reproducible workflow and recommends preserving structured metadata (nativity, years in host country, denomination, age cohort) to enable cross-study comparisons.
How the review worked (plain English)
The review used a scoping review framework following Arksey & O'Malley and PRISMA-ScR guidance: multi-database search, title/abstract and full-text screening, and inductive thematic analysis.
Inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed primary studies in English about adult Korean women and alcohol use in five English-speaking destination countries.
- Inclusion was intentionally broad with no date limits because the topic is under-researched.
- Thematic extraction was inductive, with reviewers iteratively refining themes and consulting subject experts.
- Limitations include only seven studies meeting criteria, most studies being dated (six before 2014, one in 2022), and widely varying measures of acculturation and stress.
So what for qualitative researchers and UX teams?
For qualitative researchers
Qualitative researchers should prioritise harmonised codebooks because acculturation was operationalised differently across studies, which blocks meta-synthesis.
Plan inductive coding while preserving structured metadata (nativity, years in host country, denomination, age cohort) to enable cross-study comparisons, and include probes on ritual contexts, congregational ties, and proximate drinking environments.
For public-health and policy teams
Public-health and policy teams should disaggregate Asian American subgroups because the review reports higher binge-drinking prevalence for Korean American women versus some other AAPI subgroups, making targeted interventions essential.
Engagement strategies should consider faith and congregational networks as both protective and risk contexts, and the included studies suggest peer-delivered messages appear more influential than those from leaders.
For UX/research ops (running replications or syntheses)
UX and research operations teams should use reproducible search logs and metadata templates when running replications or syntheses because the PLOS workflow (search → dedupe → screen → code) is a small-scale template for larger automated syntheses.
Document database names, search terms, dates, and inclusion decisions to ensure reproducibility and enable auditability across reviewers and projects.
Do more, faster with Evidano (mapped to this review)
Ingest & harmonise
Evidano can ingest and harmonise heterogeneous articles and study files to address inconsistent measures of acculturation and stress.
Evidano can bulk import PDFs, transcripts, and Excel coding sheets, auto-extract metadata (author, year, country), and let you normalise fields (for example, create a unified 'acculturation_score' column).
Inductive thematic + frequency analysis
Evidano can accelerate inductive coding and help teams converge on a validated codebook.
Evidano can run AI-assisted inductive theme generation across the corpus, export a hierarchical code-to-subcode structure, then let reviewers validate and lock codes, and see theme frequencies and exemplar quotes in seconds.
Cross-segment comparisons
Evidano can compute and visualise cross-segment differences when you need to compare by denomination, nativity, or acculturation status.
Evidano lets you define segments (for example, 'acculturated' versus 'traditional'), compute cross-segment theme prevalence and co-occurrence networks, and produce side-by-side visual reports for stakeholders.
Visuals & stakeholder-ready outputs
Evidano can produce stakeholder-ready visuals and exportable slide decks to translate themes into actionable recommendations.
Evidano provides one-click exports including word clouds, co-occurrence networks, hierarchical code trees, and downloadable slide decks with clickable quotes mapped to codes for auditability.
Secure & research-safe
Evidano protects sensitive research data with end-to-end encryption and model governance suitable for research contexts.
Evidano uses end-to-end encryption and proprietary LLMs tuned for qualitative research, and the platform does not use your data to train third-party models, learn more at Evidano.
Quick 6-step reproducible workflow (apply to this PLOS corpus or your own data)
Follow this six-step reproducible workflow to apply to the PLOS corpus or your own qualitative data.
Step 1: Gather sources and metadata, collect PDFs, transcripts, and a CSV with study attributes (year, sample size, nativity, measures used).
- Step 2: Import to Evidano, bulk upload documents and the CSV, and map fields.
- Step 3: Auto-extract and normalise variables, create harmonised tags for acculturation, religion, and social network indicators.
- Step 4: Run inductive theme extraction and review suggested codebook; accept, edit, or merge codes.
- Step 5: Run cross-segment analysis and co-occurrence networks to see which themes cluster together (for example, acculturation plus binge drinking).
- Step 6: Export visuals and an audit trail (quotes → codes → source) for reporting and stakeholder consultations.
Ethics & research note
Ethics and research note: This post summarises a scoping review and proposes analytic workflows for research use.
Analyses should remain non-diagnostic and respect participant consent, anonymity, and local ethics approvals when applying these workflows to primary data.
Wrapping up & next steps
Wrapping up: The PLOS review (July 14, 2026) gives a compact evidence base, and the main synthesis challenge is harmonising diverse measures and linking themes to policy-relevant segments; Evidano helps scale that synthesis reproducibly and securely.
- Next move: Reproduce the PLOS scoping themes in Evidano by importing the seven studies and running an inductive theme pass to validate or extend their findings.
- Try mapping themes, running cross-segment tests, and producing stakeholder-ready artifacts in hours rather than weeks, Try Evidano for free.