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Stigma and status are the major concepts in two important sociological traditions that describe related processes but that have developed in isolation. Although both approaches have great promise for understanding and improving population health, this promise has not been realized. In this paper, we consider the applicability of status characteristics theory (SCT) to the problem of stigma with the goal of better understanding social systemic aspects of stigma and their health consequences. To this end, we identify common and divergent features of status and stigma processes. In both, labels that are differentially valued produce unequal outcomes in resources via culturally shared expectations associated with the labels; macro-level inequalities are enacted in micro-level interactions, which in turn reinforce macro-level inequalities; and status is a key variable. Status and stigma processes also differ: Higher- and …