“The best things to have to get to older age are high status, wealthy parents, a good education, a good job and not being a smoker," says Sir Michael Marmot, director of the UCL Institute for Health Equity (Marmot Institute) in the UK.

Sir Marmot, international expert on health inequality, was speaking today (Nov 3) about health inequalities at CARDI’s international conference on ageing at Croke Park, Dublin. He underlined how differences in education, job title, income or even the size of your home can have a significant impact on your health and your mortality.

Sir Marmot argued that these social determinants of health inequalities are not confined to poor health for the poor and reasonable health for the rest. There is he says a “social gradient” of health inequalities meaning that in order to tackle health inequalities we must focus not only on bringing the lowest up but bringing the entire gradient up.

“Health inequalities are not a footnote but they are the real health issue. You have to take action across the whole of society”, he said.

In his presentation he outlined the steep gradient in disability free life expectancy in England in the English Longitudinal Study which is strongly linked to income, education, and social status.
 

See his presentation here