The scale of youth unemployment across Europe is now a public health emergency, says a world renowned expert on health inequalities.

Michael Marmot, the director of University College London’s new Institute for Health Equity, said that 21% of young people in the European Union were without jobs and faced poor long term prospects for their health as governments “fumbled” to keep pace with economic events.

“This is a warning call. We have to do something really quickly,” he told a conference at the BMA in London. “If we do nothing it will contribute greatly to increasing inequalities in health.”

Health Action Partnership International, a not-for-profit organisation, invited some 200 experts to take part in the conference, called “Social determinants of health: European and …