ABSTRACT
The James et al. chapter, along with the chapter by House et al. preceding it, illustrates the strengths and limitations of contemporary social epidemiology. The specific substantive focus of the chapter by James and his colleagues on how the social location of Blacks might affect health behavior and health status is timely and important. The prose and argument are clear. The authors are aware of their limited generalizability. The data are cross-sectional and the inability of the authors to address age, period, and cohort issues and the dynamics of interactions of individuals and milieus as they affect health is acknowledged. The small size of the sample reduces the utility of multivariate analyses.
