INSPIRE Research Chair

Inequalities in Multiple Sclerosis: identifying them to resolve them

INégalités dans la Sclérose en Plaques : les Identifier pour y REmédier

Created on September, 1st 2022 septembre 2022 for a period of 5 years, the INSPIRE Chair is supported by the EDMUS Foundation and the EHESP.

Fondation EDMUS     EHESP

A word from the President.

 

The INSPIRE Chair is an interdisciplinary and participatory, multi-year and innovative research program aimed at advancing research and proposing concrete actions to reduce inequalities induced by multiple sclerosis (MS).

The objectives of the INSPIRE Chair are :

  • to measure the consequences and impact of MS on daily life, through different dimensions including work, family and access to care;
  • to identify inequalities, in particular gender, social and territorial inequalities existing in MS, according to the dimensions analysed;
  • and assess how MS can generate inequalities.

The INSPIRE Chair innovates through its multidisciplinary approach and its concrete research focuses. This is a societal Chair, promoting the use of health data, in order to develop new practices to promote the professional integration of the 15% of people, living and working with a progressive chronic disease; and people with invisible disabilities.

Chronic progressive diseases affect a large number of French people. Their care constitutes a public health and social protection challenge, including the securing of professional careers. Medical progresses on multiple sclerosis have become inseparable from the conquest of new rights for patients and caregivers. With a diagnosis made on average at the age of 30, the onset of multiple sclerosis often slows down young workers in the full swing of their personal and professional projects. The INSPIRE Chair is a concrete social inclusion project: the program works on job retention paths and secure the status of caregivers.

The situation of people affected by MS is emblematic of the care of all progressive chronic diseases, which affect 15% of the active population in France. The work carried out with datas from the EDMUS Platform will allow to construct proposals both for the specificity of the professional and psychosocial situation of people with MS and their relatives, and for its potential generalization to cases of other chronic diseases with a major impact on the pursuit of a professional career.


Emmanuelle LERAY, Professor of epidemiology at the EHESP since 2010, has devoted her research activities to MS for many years. As a result of her recognized expertise, she has been nominated by the EDMUS Foundation to hold the INSPIRE Chair.