Speaker Biography:

Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and Director of the International Centre for Health and Society at University College London, as well as Adjunct Professor of Health and Social Behaviour at the Harvard School of Public Health.  Sir Marmot's life-time work has focused on social inequalities and health.  He conducted the well-known Whitehall Studies in Britain, which documented important effects of class on health over a 20-40 year span, and he has been involved with translating these issues into policy.  He has coordinated two European Research networks and is now co-coordinator of the European Science Foundation network on inequalities in healthy life expectancy; he has also been a member of two research networks of the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation and a member of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research Population Research programme.  He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and was elected as a founding fellow of the Academy of Medical Science (FMedSci).  Sir Marmot's work has been widely reported in the national newspapers, radio and television in Britain and Australia. In the USA, his work has been written about in the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Review of Books and has been aired on National Public Radio.  In the New Year's Honours list 2000, he was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen "For services to Epidemiology and Understanding Health Inequalities."  Sir Marmot holds a medical degree from the University of Sydney and a PhD in epidemiology from the University of California Berkeley. 

Presentation Summary:

Sir Michael Marmot's talk, "Inequalities in Health: Life and Death on the Social Gradient," is relevant to several of the Decade of Behavior themes, including health, safety, education, and prosperity.

In all industrialized societies the poor have worse health than those who are non-poor. Less appreciated is the consistent observation that, among people who are not poor, there is a social gradient in health, longevity and well-being. The evidence is strong that this social gradient relates to social and psychosocial features of the way society is organized. If all societies have gradients, is there anything we can do about the social gradient in health? Planning for a society without social differentials does not appear promising. This suggests that we need to understand what links position and hierarchy to health, longevity and the quality of life. Two crucial factors are the degree to which people are able to control their lives in the sense of moving in the direction of being able to lead the life they most want to live; and participating fully in society. Not only has research led to better understanding of these processes, but there are grounds for optimism that we can do something about them.

Additional Information:

Listen to Sir Michael Marmot's Decade of Behavior address. (The speaker's introduction and talk begins approx 18 minutes into the recording; it is suggested to fast-forward the Real Player audio clip to that point.)