Marmot Places: the areas taking a proactive local approach to health inequalities

Yorkshire GP Hasantha Jayasinghe knows exactly what health inequality looks like. He sees it in many forms, but what springs to mind most are the children with chronic, difficult-to-treat asthma he sees in his practice in a deprived, inner city area of Leeds. “These children live in houses that are dreadful; there is damp, decay, mould, parts falling down,” he says. “Housing is a big problem we have around here.”

He is not alone in worrying about the effects of health inequalities in Leeds: last June (2023) the city became a Marmot Place. This means following the eight principles (box 1) set out by the influential Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology at University College London, whose work has focused on the effects of inequality on health for more than 40 years. Jayasinghe’s work looking at how GPs might be able to help their patients struggling with the effects of health inequalities has now become part of the work across the city to tackle these deep rooted problems.

The Marmot review in 2010—Fair Society, Healthy Lives—emphasised that health inequalities result …