Race and gender also shape exposure to social constraints and opportunities throughout life in ways that influence social ties, health habits, and the psychosocial mechanisms that link the two, and they need to be studied more explicitly (Williams 2002, 2003). Such differences are apparent in many key health habits but not in consistent ways across health habits. For example, at all ages, men are more likely than women to drink heavily, whereas women are more likely to be overweight. Compared with whites, African Americans are less likely to smoke (particularly women) but more likely to be overweight. Gender and race differences are also apparent in social ties and in mechanisms linking social ties to health habits. As one example, social involvement has stronger effects on the health/mortality of men than of women, partly because social ties, especially marital ties, are stronger deterrents of risky behavior for men (Waite & Gallagher 2000). Notably, socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with health habits. Gender and race are conflated with SES, but SES does not fully account for race and gender variation in health
