Research centre seeks to reduce health inequalities

The Centre is also working in partnership with a team of experts in local and national government and a wide range of health equity focused advocacy and voluntary groups including the Health Foundation, Race Equality Foundation, Carers Trust, Eurocarers, City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, Disability Rights UK, Early Education and Childcare Coalition, National Literacy Trust, Women’s Budget Group, The Poverty Alliance, Skills and Education Group, and Voluntary Health Scotland.

Professor Yvonne Kelly,  Director  of the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies (ICLS), and co-Director of the new centre,  said the idea for the new programme of work was forged from more than 15 years of highly impactful research at ICLS, that had already played a major role in identifying and addressing health inequalities. She added it was now time to find solutions to these clearly identified and well understood inequalities:

“Despite the UK leading the way in health inequalities research, the gaps between rich and poor have widened, gains in life expectancy have stalled and poor health restricts people’s ability to participate actively and equally in society. The ESRC Centre for Lifecourse Health Equity (Equalise) seeks to change that by moving away from identifying the issues to actively addressing them. This will be done by undertaking collaborative research with our partners that generates actionable insights to redress health inequalities.”

The Centre’s research will have 5 key themes:

• Reducing inequalities in learning and development opportunities
• Work and health over the lifecourse
• Care, health and wellbeing over the lifecourse
• Place-based inequalities
• Research and policy synthesis

The Centre is staffed by leading researchers in their field, among them Professor Sir Michael Marmot, a long-term champion and advocate of an evidence-led approach to health equity. He said:

“A cost-of-living crisis, a pandemic, and a decade of austerity have led to rising levels of ill-health and widening health inequalities. This new Centre is uniquely placed to coproduce a highly ambitious programme of research that can identify key points where interventions can work. It is time for health equity to become the social norm. This in turn will foster a society and an economy that are more robust to global threats and crises.”

The new Centre, which is funded by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council, starts its five-year research programme with immediate effect.

Co-investigators and partners

University College London - Yvonne Kelly, Anne McMunn, Baowen Xue, Stephen Jivraj, Sir Michael Marmot, Peter Martin, Katie Harron, Jessica Allen

City St George’s, University of London - Rebecca Lacey

University of Strathclyde - Katherine Smith

University of Glasgow - Petra Meier, Corinna Elsenbroch

Paul Sabatier University - Michelle Kelly-Irving

University of Essex - Emily Murray

City of Bradford Metropolitan Council – Ellen Flint

Race Equality Foundation – Jabeer Butt

Carers Trust – Rohati Chapman

Women’s Budget Group – Mary-Ann Stephenson

Scottish Women’s Budget Group – Sara Cowan

Skills and Education Group Foundation – Joe McLoughlin

Disability Rights UK – Kamran Mallick

Early Education and Childcare Coalition – Sara Ronan

The Poverty Alliance – Laura Robertson

Voluntary Health Scotland – Tejesh Mistry

National Literacy Trust – Tracy Jackson OBE

Eurocarers – Stecy Yghemonos

Public Health Scotland – Deborah Shipton

The Health Foundation

Department for Education

Department for Work and Pensions

Work and Health Unit

Office for Health Improvements and Disparities

Scottish Government