Health inequities arise from unequal distributions of resources, recognition, institutional protection, and opportunity, yet their consequences are often interpreted through individual psychological or behavioral categories. This conceptual article develops a psychological account that does not relocate structural causation inside the person. It proposes that social conditions become health-relevant partly by shaping threat, perceived control, identity safety, behavioral feasibility, and expectations of healthcare. These are not universal mediators or fixed traits; they are context-sensitive transformations conditioned by resources, prior experience, social position, cultural meaning, institutional treatment, and time. Evidence on financial strain, discrimination, neighborhood conditions, stigma, control beliefs, coping, trust, and healthcare engagement is used to separate established relationships from proposed synthesis. The framework treats behavior as adaptation within unequal opportunity sets, mistrust as potentially experience-based, and psychological states as contingent rather than intrinsic to disadvantaged groups. It also incorporates feedback, because health can alter resources and repeated experiences can revise expectations. Psychologically informed equity research therefore requires multilevel measurement, causal restraint, and interventions that address both subjective pathways and their structural generators.
