Sociological work on social class has also contributed to our understanding of racial disparities by underscoring the multidimensionality of SES indicators (Hauser 1994). Sociologists have shown that it requires assessing the multiple dimensions to SES to fully characterize its contribution to racial disparities in health. Moreover, all of the indicators of SES are non-equivalent across race. For example, compared to whites, blacks and some other racial minorities have lower income at every level of education, less wealth (net assets) at every level of income, higher rates of unemployment at all levels of education, higher exposure to occupational hazards even have adjusting for job experience and education and less purchasing power because of higher costs of goods and services in their residential contexts (Williams and Collins 1995). Sociological research has also highlighted the role of SES at the community level as captured by neighborhood level markers of economic hardship, social disorder and concentrated disadvantage (Wilson 1990; Massey and Denton 1993). Other sociological research has called attention to large racial/ethnic inequalities in wealth and in documenting that these gaps reflect, at least
