Andrew Patrick Arthur Steptoe FAcSS FMedSci MAE (born 24 April 1951) is a British psychologist and epidemiologist and Head of the Department of Behavioural Science and Health at University College London.
[5][6] Steptoe was appointed a lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford, held concurrently with a Medical Research Council Training Fellowship in 1975.
[10] In 2000, Steptoe moved to the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London to become the first British Heart Foundation professor of psychology, a post he held until 2016.
He has been involved in the identification of the psychobiological pathways that link population-level risk factors such as low socioeconomic status and work stress with atherogenesis and cardiovascular disease progression.
[2] He has also 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.
[14] He edited a collection of studies of creativity and temperament in the historical record,[15] and has contributed research on Renaissance and 18th century history.