the design and targeting of interventions for lung cancer. It indicates, for example, that smoking cessation may be an especially effective strategy to reduce racial disparities in cancer mortality among men. A similar pattern of the primacy of social risks to the onset over the course of disease may not be evident for other health conditions and future research needs to attend to the particular patterns that emerge for specific diseases. Research also needs to identify the factors that can affect the success of particular intervention strategies across social groups. For example, although attempts to quit smoking are comparable across racial groups, whites are markedly more likely to be successful quitters than blacks, Latinos and Asians.56 While attempts to quit did not follow an SES gradient, success at quitting did. This pattern was evident for most racial groups. Other research indicates that when smoking cessation programs for blue collar workers are integrated with efforts to reduce job-related health and safety hazards, workers are more likely to quit than if offered only a smoking cessation program.174
