I propose that the underlying etiology of population health disparities are causally linked through individual chronic stressor exposures, unhealthy coping behaviors, and the stress response network and related biological systems over the individual life-course. An extension of this framework questions the static categorization of race; instead arguing that race is a complex construct that in adulthood represents a broad set of life experiences that cannot be arrayed along a simple demographic/social dimension assigned at birth. I suggest instead that all individuals are racialized through their lived experiences over the life-course, within a particular culture, during unique periods of historical time.