Sociological research has also shed important light on how factors linked to race contribute to racial differences in health. This work has identified multiple ways in which racism initiates and sustains health disparities (Williams and Mohammed 2009). This research explicitly draws on the larger literature in sociology on racism and conceptualizes it as a multilevel construct, encompassing institutional and individual discrimination, racial prejudice and stereotypes as well as internalized racism (Feagin and McKinney 2003; Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Massey and Denton 1993).
