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Today, our director Matthew Kavanagh, PhD co-authored a research paper in the New England Journal of Medicine which finds that economic inequality, not conventional preparedness, is the clearest predictor of how countries fare against pandemics.

This upends traditional assumptions about what actions governments need to take for health security. The analysis is accompanied by a multi-country observational study of inequality, prepared by Professor Kavanagh and our Center's Sanjana Mukherjee.

The analysis comes from the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics, comprising of Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, leading epidemiologist Professor Sir Michael Marmot, former First Lady of Namibia Monica Geingos, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, alongside Professor Kavanagh.

The reason is that inequality shapes whether a country can actually mobilise the tools it has: who can afford to stay at home, who trusts public institutions, and who is reached by health services. This makes tackling inequality an essential part of enabling true preparedness.

The research sets out proven, practical and affordable policies to address the inequalities driving pandemic risk, so that countries can respond more effectively to HIV, tuberculosis, Ebola and other pandemics.

The actions governments need to take include protecting people during outbreaks; governing across society, not health alone; fixing the global financial rules and sharing life-saving science.