The research reviewed indicates that social disparities in health are large, pervasive, and persistent over time. These inequalities in health reflect larger inequalities in society. Race, SES, and gender all matter for health separately and in combination. We need to better understand what happens when these social statuses interact. Moreover our review reveals that the patterning of health status and risk factors for males versus females is neither simple nor straightforward. We need research that elucidates how risks and resources linked to multiple social statuses and social roles can create particular patterns of living and working conditions that combine over time to affect health. Our review also reveals that individual level indicators of SES do not fully capture lifetime exposure to social adversity or social advantage for racial groups. Understanding the joint effects of race and SES will require greater attention to comprehensively quantifying risks in the social and physical environment and understanding how they interact with biological mechanisms to affect health. Importantly, fully understanding the biological processes shaping health disparities will require attention to social risk factors. As research
