Fellow

Andrew Steptoe is the British Heart Foundation Professor of Psychology at UCL. He is one of Britain’s leading health psychologists and studies the interaction between psychosocial factors and biological responses in human health and disease. He has advanced understanding of how psychosocial factors influence health by discovering that inflammatory cytokines and haemostatic factors respond acutely to mental stress, and showing that different psychosocial risk groups exhibit different rates of recovery in important biological measurements. Second, he has advanced the theoretical underpinning of psychobiological processes, building on allostatic theory to formulate a taxonomy of autonomic, neuroendocrine, inflammatory, and immune pathways through which life experiences influence disease risk. Third, he has deepened understanding of the impact of triggering events in acute coronary syndromes, establishing a psychophysiological basis for susceptibility to acute emotional triggers in vulnerable individuals. Andrew Steptoe has alos investigated the determinants of healthy lifestyles, ways to change health behaviour, particularly in socially deprived groups, the relation of depression to physical health, and links between mental health and physical activity.