Event

What can history tell us about current health inequalities?

4 June 2015, 6pm

Share

The Behaviour and Health Research Unit Annual Lecture 2015

Speaker: Simon Szreter, Professor of History and Public Policy, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge

Venue: Downing College, Cambridge (see here for map and directions)

Date: 4 June 2015, 6pm - 7pm + drinks

Register for this event

This year's Behaviour and Health Research Unit (BHRU) Annual Lecture has been organised in collaboration with the Centre for Science and Policy, and will be delivered by Professor Simon Szreter, Professor of History and Public Policy, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.

This lecture will argue that history shows how the nature and scale of health inequalities within a society are produced by the social and cultural environment of values and incentives experienced by the rich, as much as by the poor, who are the usual focus of attention. This environment can be and has been modified dramatically several times by the forces of ideology and politics during the last half millennium of British history. It therefore follows that our current trend of widening inequalities can be modified once again – by focusing on the values and incentives of the rich.

In an interview with Professor Szreter, he discusses his research on History and Public Policy, especially in relation to comparative demographic, social and economic change.

BHRU

The Behaviour and Health Research Unit (BHRU), is based in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care within the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge. The Unit is funded as part of the Department of Health Policy Research Programme as the Policy Research Unit in Behaviour and Health.

The aim of the BHRU is to contribute evidence to national and international efforts to achieve sustained behaviour change that improves health outcomes and reduces health inequalities.

BHRU uses a range of research methods, including evidence synthesis and primary research, the latter involving both laboratory and field experiments, as well as qualitative studies.

Register for this event

Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge, CB2 1DQ, United Kingdom

  • In news articles

    What can History tell us about current health inequalities?

    Professor Szreter used historical cases in Britain to demonstrate how the nature and scale of health inequalities within a society are produced by the social and cultural environment of values and incentives experienced by the rich, as much as by the poor (who are the usual focus of attention).