04.01.11
New President for the BMA: Sir Michael Marmot
Sir Michael Marmot has been appointed as the new President of the British Medical Association at the BMA’s annual conference in Brighton. His term will run from June 2010 to June 2011.
Sir Michael Marmot is a world expert in health inequalities and the social determinants of health and has led a research group on this issue for the past 30 years. He chaired the WHO Commission which produced its report in 2008 entitled ‘Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on social determinants of health’.
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 World Health Organisation Euro to conduct a European review of health inequalities.
Sir Michael Marmot is also the Director of the International Institute for Society and Health and a Medical Research Council Research Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.
In 2000, Sir Marmot was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen for services to Epidemiology and understanding health inequalities.
On his appointment to the post of BMA President, Sir Michael Marmot said: “I am delighted and honoured to have been appointed President of the BMA for the coming year. The theme I have chosen for my year as President is health inequalities and I hope to assist the BMA with their work in this area.”
“Despite living in one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, many individuals in the UK have a poor start in life simply because they are born on the wrong side of the tracks. The poorest people will die earlier and they will also spend a greater proportion of those shorter lives unwell.
“Doctors are in a unique position to speak out for their patients and to call for more resources to be spent on preventing disease. I hope as President of the BMA I will be able to help the Association with this task.”
Sir Michael Marmot succeeds Professor Averil Mansfield, who steps down after completing her one-year term as BMA President, but who will be remaining with the BMA as she takes over as chairman of the Board of Science.
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