The Handbook of Stress and Health

A Guide to Research and Practice

Cary Cooper, James Campbell Quick, Cary Cooper, James Campbell Quick

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781118993774
• eBook ISBN: 9781118993781
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

A comprehensive work that brings together and explores state-of-the-art research on the link between stress and health outcomes.

• Offers the most authoritative resource available, discussing a range of stress theories as well as theories on preventative stress management and how to enhance well-being
• Timely given that stress is linked to seven of the ten leading causes of death in developed nations, yet paradoxically successful adaptation to stress can enable individuals to flourish
• Contributors are an international panel of authoritative researchers and practitioners in the various specialty subjects addressed within the work

Part One
Theories

1
Bridging the Science–Policy and Policy–Implementation Gaps
A Crucial Challenge

Lennart Levi

“More, and better jobs.” This is a cornerstone of the European Union's strategy for sustainable development for its 508 million inhabitants, and rightly so. But my own 60 years of active research and teaching and experience from my four years in the Swedish Parliament in this area, through countless conferences, speeches, publications, and discussions with fellow researchers, parliamentarians and cabinet ministers, have taught me that there is a rather long and deep gap between scientific knowledge on the one hand, and its translation into political decisions on the other. And between such policies and their successful implementation (cf. Levi, 2016).

These “science–policy and policy–implementation gaps” refer to the unnecessary delays and difficulties in turning scientific knowledge into policy and decision-making, and equally important, in implementing the decisions (and, eventually, in evaluating them).

It is widely accepted that a broad range of physical, biological, and chemical exposures can damage health and well-being – for example, bacteria, viruses, ionizing radiation, short asbestos fibers, lead, mercury, and organic solvents. It is harder but fully possible to demonstrate, and even find acceptance for, the notion that psychosocial influences brought about by social and economic conditions and conveyed by processes within the central nervous system or human behavior can have corresponding effects (Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Kompier and Levi, 1994; Levi, l971; 1972; 1979; 1981; 2000a; 2000b; Levi and Andersson, 1974; Shimomitsu, 2000; Black, 2008; Government Office for Science, 2008).

Every day, everywhere, decisions are made concerning matters big and small, with direct or indirect effects on health and well-being. The decisions, or their absence, may concern “diagnostic” procedures and/or various “therapeutic,” “preventive,” “promotive,” and “palliative” ones. A universal challenge is to conduct them in a humane, sustainable, integrated and evidence-based manner, in government as well as in management, on all levels. This can be very far from being the case, as illustrated by the following – historic – examples.

Famous Examples of Costly Gaps

Nearly two and a half millennia ago, Socrates came back from army service to report to his Greek countrymen that in one respect the Thracians were ahead of Greek civilization: They knew that the body could not be cured without the mind. “This,” he continued, “is the reason why the cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the whole” (quoted by Dunbar, 1954, p. 3). About two millennia later Paracelsus emphasized that “true medicine only arises from the creative knowledge of the last and deepest powers of the whole universe” (1954, p. 3). Perhaps these assertions represent an early, intuitive understanding of what we today refer to as ecological, cybernetic, and systems approaches, and the idea of “health in all policies.”

One of the well-documented examples of a very long and winding way to bridge a science–policy gap is given by Baron (2009) in his fascinating discussion of sailors’ scurvy and options for its successful treatment and prevention, primarily by citrus fruits. For centuries, many sailors, some ships’ doctors but few university-trained physicians cured and prevented scurvy with oranges and lemons. In 1753, James Lind described his prospective controlled therapeutic trial of 1747. Although not entirely reliable, his report stimulated Thomas Trotter and Gilbert Blane to persuade the British Navy in 1793 to abolish scurvy by compulsory lemon juice, only for it to reappear after 1860, when lime juice was substituted for lemon juice. This lack of awareness caused the unnecessary deaths of countless sailors during the centuries when long sea travels became both possible and common.

Additional examples are provided by the controversies between scientists (e.g., Galileo, Darwin) and the clergy, where the discoveries of the former were deemed heretical and were forbidden and even punished by the latter.

The very considerable difficulties in implementing existing evidence, even in more recent times, are provided by two examples (Schmitt, 1988). In 1929, Werner Forssmann, 25 years old, successfully applied heart catheterization – on himself. Encouraged by his success, he approached a world-famous surgeon, Professor Ferdinand Sauerbruch, proposing expanded research based on his discovery. To which the professor responded: “With such tricks you qualify yourself for a circus – not for a decent clinic.” But Forssmann persisted and became one of the founders of modern cardiovascular diagnostics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956.

In 1892, Carl Ludwig Schleich, 33 years old, presented his revolutionary discovery of local anesthesia at a surgical congress in Berlin, arguing: “So that I, with this harmless means at hand, for ideological, moral and legal reasons, can replace dangerous general anesthesia, whenever the former is sufficient.” His modest intervention triggered a storm of indignation from his audience. The chairman of his session turned to the audience: “Is anyone here convinced of the truth of what has just been hurled at us? If so, please raise your hand.” No one reacted. Many years followed before Schleich's discovery was confirmed, appreciated – and implemented worldwide, to the great benefit of countless patients.

Obstacles

During the past century and the present one, we have relinquished as an ideal the mastery of the whole realm of human knowledge by one person, and replaced it by our training as specialists. This training has tended to keep each of us so closely limited by our own field that we have remained ignorant even of the fundamental principles in the fields outside our own, and of the total complex picture.

Superspecialization and fragmentation are becoming increasingly problematic against a background of ongoing rapid changes in public health conditions worldwide. Many of the major killers are now chronic, degenerative diseases. They are highly complex in their etiology, pathogenesis, manifestations, and effects. And they are not easily accessible to purely medical interventions (cf. Levi, 2009). At the same time, it seems likely that much of the morbidity and premature mortality is preventable. This, however, requires action beyond the health and health-care sector and may involve the empowerment of the grassroots. Sectors outside the traditional health and health-care field, but still of major importance for our health and well-being, include education, employment, work environment, economic resources, housing, transportation and communication, leisure and recreation, social relations, political resources, safety and security, and equality (“health in all policies”).

What Was Known Regarding “Stress and Health” Half a Century Ago?

The author of the present chapter started working as a researcher in this field some 60 years ago. Already at that time, in the mid-1950s, there was much evidence for the health effects of social structures and processes (cf. Selye, 1950; Dunbar, 1954; Wolf and Goodell, 1968; Henry and Stephens, 1977). Some 15 years later, in order to summarize and promote implementation of what was known, I organized a series of five international, interdisciplinary one-week symposia for the World Health Organization and the University of Uppsala under the joint title “Society, Stress and Disease,” bringing together leading scientists and some policy makers from all over the world. The focus was on social determinants of human health and disease, from the cradle to the grave. The symposia proceedings were published in five volumes (Levi, 1971; 1975; 1978; 1981; 1987), but also as five popular booklets (in Swedish), and further disseminated through daily, well-attended press conferences.

Subsequently, such issues were discussed, again, by the 27th World Health Assembly in Geneva in 1974, and by the European Union in Brussels in 1993 and in Helsinki in 2008 (European Pact for Mental Health and Well-Being, see below).

Invited by David A. Hamburg, President of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, I further prepared a chapter on “Psychosocial factors in preventive medicine” for the US Surgeon General's Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Healthy People (see Levi, 1979). Again at David A. Hamburg's invitation, Bertil Gardell, Marianne Frankenhaeuser and I prepared a chapter on “Work stress related to social structures and processes,” for the volume Stress and Human Health (Elliot and Eisdorfer, 1982).

More than three decades ago, and following a series of preparatory meetings, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Office (ILO) invited their joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health to prepare a report on “Identification and control of adverse psychosocial factors at work,” meeting in Geneva on September 18–24, 1984. Dr. Alexander Cohen, Chief, Applied Psychology and Ergonomics Branch of the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, was Chair and I was Vice-Chair of a group of 15 international experts, plus in-house experts from both organizations. Rapporteurs were Dr. Raija Kalimo of Finland and Dr. Noel Pardon of France. We all worked very hard fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part One Theories
• Part Two Impact of Stress on Health
• Part Three Personality, Demographics, and Stress
• Part Four Coping with Stress
• Part Five Enhancing Individual Well-Being
• Part Six Enhancing Organizational and Community Well-Being
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• EULA