Richard Wilkinson on Inequality

Richard Wilkinson is Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham Medical School, Honorary Professor at University College London, and Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York. He was one of the founders, and is now a Patron of The Equality Trust.

From his first publication in 1973, he drew attention to the tendency for a range of social problems to be exacerbated by wider income differences between rich and poor. His career has focused on research into the social determinants of health, and on the health and social effects of income inequality, and bringing the injustices of inequality to public attention.

Richard is best known for his book with Kate Pickett The Spirit Level, first published in 2009, which argues that societies with more equal distribution of incomes have better health, fewer social problems such as violence, drug abuse, teenage births, mental illness, obesity, and others, and are more cohesive than ones in which the gap between the rich and poor is greater.

His first TED talk ‘How economic inequality harms societies’ has been watched over 5 million times.

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