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Prof Andrew Steptoe
British Heart Foundation Professor of Psychology
Behavioural Science and Health
Institute of Epidemiology & Health
- Joined UCL
- 1st Oct 2000
Research summary
1. Ageing and health - I am director of the English
Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a large population-based study of a
representative sample of men and women aged 50 and over living in England http://www.ifs.org.uk/elsa/. The study forms the basis of
a range of research involving economics, psychosocial factors, health,
cognition, biology and genetics. 2. The studies that I and my colleagues and
students have carried out using ELSA and other population cohorts include work
on dementia, frailty, subjective wellbeing and health, and social factors such
as social isolation and loneliness in relation to health, cognition and
wellbeing. We have also completed studies of discrimination on the basis of age
and body weight, subjective perceptions of age, health literacy and other
issues. 3. Psychobiology of health and disease - The purpose of this programme
is to understand the biological processes through which social status and other
psychosocial factors influence disease risk. It involves laboratory studies of
the influence of psychosocial factors on cardiovascular, neuroendocrine and
immune function, naturalistic studies of blood pressure, cortisol and other
measures during everyday life, and clinical studies of patients with coronary
heart disease. We have been particularly interested in the impact of mental
stress on inflammatory, metabolic, and haemostatic processes; the links between
physiological responses and psychosocial risk factors such as low socioeconomic
position, depression, work stress, optimism and loneliness; the prospective associations
between acute physiological responses to emotional stress and the development
of cardiometabolic disease; the complex interplay between psychological
processes, neuroendocrine activation, inflammation, depression, and recovery
following acute cardiac events such as myocardial infarction; the impact of stress-related biology on biological ageing; and the use of
novel biomarkers in social epidemiology. 4. Health behaviour research -
Behaviours such as dietary choice, smoking and physical exercise are important
determinants of health and disease risk. We carry out studies of the
determinants of health behaviours, and work on the use of behavioural counselling
to modify risk behaviours.
Teaching summary
I am course director of the UCL Health Psychology MSc. I also supervise a number of PhD students in health psychology, psychobiology, and epidemiology
Education
- University of London
- DSC, | 1995
- University of Oxford
- DPhil, Clinical Medicine | 1976
- University of Cambridge
- MA, | 1976
- University of Cambridge
- BA, Natural Sciences | 1972
Biography
Andrew Steptoe is Professor of Psychology and Head of the Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health, part of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care in the Faculty of Population Health
Sciences. He graduated
from Cambridge in 1972, and completed his doctorate at Oxford University in
1975. He moved to St. George’s Hospital Medical School in 1977, becoming
professor and chair of the Department in 1988, where he remained until his
appointment in 2000 to UCL as British Heart Foundation Professor of Psychology, a position he held until 2016. He became Deputy Head of the Department of Epidemiology
and Public Health at UCL in 2005 and subsequently Head of Department before
being serving as Director of the Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care between 2011 and 2017. He is a Past-President of the
International Society of Behavioral Medicine and is a fellow of the Academy of
Medical Sciences, the British Psychological Society, Academia Europaea, and the
Academy of Social Sciences. He was founding editor of the British Journal of
Health Psychology, an associate editor of Psychophysiology, the Annals of
Behavioral Medicine, the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, the
International Journal of Rehabilitation and Health and the Journal of
Psychosomatic Research, and is on the editorial boards of seven other journals.
Andrew directs the Psychobiology Group (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iehc/research/behavioural-science-health/research/psychobiology) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing research group at UCL (http://www.ifs.org.uk/ELSA). He has
published more than 550 peer-reviewed articles and is author or editor of 18
books, most recently the Handbook of Behavioral Medicine (2010) and Stress and
Cardiovascular Disease (2012).
