ERES, a French acronym for Equipe de Recherche en Epidémiologie Sociale brings together researchers, engineers and students who came from two teams previously split between Paris 6 and Paris 11 Universities. We aim to gather substantial and synergic research resources devoted to the study of the processes and determinants of the social and territorial inequalities in health and health care utilization, by constituting one of the leading research group in this field in France.
Our general objective is to improve knowledge of different factors and processes which may be the causes or the consequences of social inequalities in health in a population perspective and on different specific dimensions of the social and territorial determinants of health and health care utilization at a micro level. Based on a theoretical framework inspired by Dahlgren & Whitehead and the public health and political perspective inspired by Marmot & Wilkinson, our research project will focus on social inequalities per se and emphasize several determinants of health which contribute to social health inequalities: neighbourhood and occupational environment, social integration and immigrant status; among other health outcomes we will study chronic diseases.
Our research project aims also to meet some of the current scientific challenges in social epidemiology: to better understand the processes at the origin of social inequalities in health that shape the whole society, to characterize more precisely the impact of some social determinants of health with new (particularly biographical and contextual) approaches, and to pay a special attention to the most vulnerable people. Therefore, the ERES research project will be structured in 3 main thematic axes: the social inequalities in health, the social determinants of health, and the situations of some underserved subgroups of population.
At the time when these topics are recognized as priorities both at the French and European level, our research aim to assist health professionals or public decision makers in the development of new responses to the emerging “social risks” for health and/or to underserved groups of population. For this purpose, many of the members of our group are involved as experts for the information, training, evaluation or strategic thinking in various non academic, European, national or regional institutions.
Our project is based on specific tools and skills gathered in our team. First, they concern the follow-up of the different cohort surveys of which we are PI (Record, Sirs, Tempo) or co-leaders (Copana, Parcours, Vespa2), as well as a privileged access and analysis skills of large database, in Europe (mortality datasets and national health surveys) and in France, but also the previous constitution and utilization of geographic information systems. Second, we have also a recognized know-how in the design and realization of population-based surveys and surveys of underserved, hard-to-reach, populations in urban context. Third, this project also calls upon our skills in statistical modeling methods (not only the ones usually used in epidemiology, but also some others, more innovative ones, such as structural, multilevel and/or spatial models).

For more information visit our website : http://www.iplesp.upmc.fr/eres/