Lecture presented by Professor Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of Nottingham

6.00 – 7.00pm, Wednesday 26 August, 2009
Sunderland Theatre, Medical Building, Corner Grattan St and Royal Parade, the University of Melbourne, Parkville

Everyone knows that the poor in rich societies are more likely to have shorter, less healthy lives, to do less well at school and to end up on the wrong side of the law. The Spirit Level goes further than this, to demonstrate for the first time that a whole range of social problems – from poor health to educational failure, from mental illness to obesity, from drug addition to violence, from teenage births to the weakening of community life – share one overwhelming feature: they are all several times more common in more unequal societies. The evidence that bigger income differences create more problems is conclusive. And rather than affecting just the poor, inequality reduces the quality of life for everyone in less equal societies.

Please note, this is a free public lecture (no RSVP required).