Jason Strelitz, Director of Public Health in the London Borough of Newham; Cllr Rachel Blake, a Local Councillor for Bow East in Tower Hamlets; Dr Vanessa Apea, a consultant physician in Genito-urinary and HIV medicine at Barts Health NHS Trust; and Dr Megan Clinch, a Senior Lecturer in Medicine and Society at Queen Mary, came together to discuss how health inequalities affect residents in East London.
Health inequalities are unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society. Health inequalities arise because of the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work and age. These conditions influence our opportunities for good health, and how we think, feel and act, and this shapes our mental health, physical health and wellbeing.
Whilst life expectancy is increasing, the period spent in good health is not keeping pace. This is particularly acute for communities who experience inequalities, like many of the University's local population in East London.
On average, a female living in Kensington and Chelsea can expect to spend a decade longer in good health than her counterpart in Newham. For males living in Hackney, this gap widens to nearly 13 fewer years in good health than their peers in Richmond.
The new Lifelong Health multidisciplinary research theme (MDT) within the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry seeks to promote collaboration in research to find solutions to these complex social challenges.
Queen Mary's research covers the whole life course from pre-conception to death, with a focus on metabolism, rare diseases, drug discovery and health inequalities. We want to take a biopsychosocial approach and strengthen our existing relationship with Barts Health.
The lifelong health theme focuses of four priority areas –
- Metabolism - metabolism underpins every biological reaction, and changes in metabolic function can determine a wide range of health outcomes.
- Rare diseases - 1 in 17 people are affected by a rare disease at some point in their lives. Mechanisms for rare diseases can also inform common diseases.
- Drug discovery & therapeutics - this includes repurposing existing drugs, developing new drugs such as senolytics, and other therapies such as gene and cell therapies.
- Health inequalities - healthy ageing is not universal, and populations affected by inequalities are most likely to spend longer in poor health.
In his speech on the day, Professor Sir Mark Caulfield, Vice Principal for Health at Queen Mary University of London, said: "As the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, we have a clear and ambitious mission: we want to achieve better health for all through our research and education. The impact of our work extends globally, but we have a particular commitment to our local population in East London. This focus not only reflects our history, but also the fact that many of our local community face significant inequalities in health outcomes.
"East London is home to some of the most innovative research and clinical practice in the world. East London Genes and Health is one of the world's largest community-based genetics studies. Our colleagues – including Professor David van Heel and Dr Sarah Finer - are working to fully sequence the genomes of 100,000 people of South Asian descent, a population at high risk of heart disease and diabetes."
