Link and Phelan’s pioneering 1995 theory of fundamental causes urged health scholars to consider the macro-level contexts that “put people at risk of risks.” Allied research on the political economy of health has since aptly demonstrated how institutions contextualize risk factors for health. Yet scant research has fully capitalized on either fundamental cause or political economy of health’s allusion to power relations as a determinant of persistent inequalities in population health. I address this oversight by advancing a theory of health power resources that contends that power relations distribute and translate the meaning (i.e., necessity, value, and utility) of socioeconomic and health-relevant resources. This occurs through stratification, commodification, discrimination, and devitalization. Resurrecting historical sociological emphases on power relations provides an avenue through which scholars can more fully understand the patterning of population health and better connect the sociology of health and illness to the central tenets of the discipline.

Link 和 Phelan 于 1995 年提出的开创性根本原因理论敦促健康学者考虑“使人们面临风险”的宏观背景。此后，有关健康政治经济学的联合研究恰当地证明了机构如何将健康风险因素置于背景中。然而，很少有研究充分利用健康的根本原因或政治经济学来暗示权力关系作为人口健康持续不平等的决定因素。我通过提出一种健康权力资源理论来解决这种监督问题，该理论认为权力关系分配和翻译了社会经济和健康相关资源的含义（即必要性、价值和效用）。这是通过分层、商品化、歧视和失活而发生的。复兴历史社会学对权力关系的强调提供了一条途径，通过该途径，学者们可以更全面地理解人口健康的模式，并更好地将健康和疾病社会学与该学科的中心原则联系起来。