January 25, 2017 | News | Suessmilch Lecture

Health inequalities in Europe

On January 31, 2017, Johan Mackenbach from the Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, will give a talk at the MPIDR entitled "Health inequalities in Europe. New insights from comparative studies”.

Abstract

Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality are present in all European countries, but their magnitude and development over time is highly variable. In a series of on-going comparative studies we exploit these variations to identify the macro- and micro-level determinants of these mortality inequalities. In my presentation I will summarize the results of these studies, discuss their strenghts and limitations, and relate our findings to current insights into the explanation of health inequalities in modern welfare states.

About the speaker

Johan Mackenbach is Professor of Public Health and chair of the Department of Public Health at Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests are in social epidemiology, medical demography, and health policy. He has (co-)authored more than 500 papers in international, peer-reviewed, scientific journals, as well as a number of books. He is a former editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Public Health. He is actively engaged in exchanges between research and policy, among others as a member of the Health Council of the Netherlands and the Council for Public Health and Health Care. He is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.