Sir Michael Marmot

Michael Marmot has led a research group on health inequalities for the past 30 years. He is Principal Investigator of the Whitehall Studies of British civil servants, investigating explanations for the striking inverse social gradient in morbidity and mortality. He leads the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and is engaged in several international research efforts on the social determinants of health. He chairs the Department of Health Scientific Reference Group on tackling health inequalities. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution for six years. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. In 2000 he was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen for services to Epidemiology and understanding health inequalities. Internationally acclaimed, Professor Marmot was a Vice President of the Academia Europaea, and is a Foreign Associate Member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). He was Chair of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health set up by the World Health Organization in 2005: ‘Closing the Gap in a Generation’. Professor Marmot won the Balzan Prize for Epidemiology in 2004, gave the Harveian Oration in 2006 and won the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research in 2008. At the request of the British Government, he conducted a review of health inequalities, which published its report 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives' in February 2010. He has now been invited by the Regional Director of WHO Euro to conduct a European review of health inequalities. Sir Michael is the President of the British Medical Association (BMA).