Social Inequalities, Psychosocial Factors, and Health

Psychological factors include:

• Positive and negative affect (an emotion or mood associated with an idea or action, or the external expression of such a feeling)
• Sense of control
• Purpose in life
• Spirituality
• Perceived constraints
• Sense of mastery

Social relationship factors include:

• Marital history
• Marital quality
• Quality of intergenerational relationships
• Quality of relationships with friends
• Caregiving

Dr. Marks and her colleagues (Carol Ryff, Burton Singer, Robert Hauser, Larry Bumpass, and Joseph Grzywacz) are studying how these factors influence health status (perceptions about health, how well people function, reports about symptoms and illness and mortality).

Three theories are being tested:

• That differences in psychological and social relationship factors help explain and/or moderate the influence of socioecomomic status and race or ethnicity on health.
• That differences in these factors lead to differences in health behavior, which in turn lead to differences in physical health.
• That differences in these factors lead to differences in the way people adapt to disadvantage across their lives, which in turn leads to differences in physical health.

This research will help provide additional information about how social and psychological factors affect our health, which can help guide social policy, including health care policy.