Sir Michael Marmot, an internationally known expert in public health, will discuss "Inequalities in Health: Life and Death on the Social Gradient" on Thursday, Feb. 21, 3:30 to 5 p.m., in Toland Hall.

The lecture, hosted by the UCSF Center for Health and Community is free, and the public is invited to attend.

Michael Marmot, who received his PhD in epidemiology from UC Berkeley in 1975, is head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and director of the International Centre for Health and Society at University College, London.

He has held positions at UC Berkeley, the University of Texas, Houston, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He served on the British Acheson Commission, the "Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health." Marmot has received numerous awards and honors for his contribution to public health, and was knighted in 2000 for services to epidemiology and the understanding of health inequalities.

He currently directs the Whitehall study of British civil servants, a study of patterns of disease among immigrants to Britain, and research monitoring that nation's cardiovascular health. He is also investigating social gradients in health in Japan, causes of East-West differences in coronary heart disease, and pursuing an initiative on psychological triggers of biological pathways of disease.