PART 2 Stress and health
in context
4
CHAPTER PLAN
Chapter 3 examined a range of different approaches to stress and considered the links
between stress and health. In this chapter we look at the effect of environmental or
contextual factors on stress and their relationship to health.
In the first section, we consider the effect of socio-economic status (SES) and social
inequality on stress and health. It is well established worldwide that poverty and
deprivation are associated with poor health and that even within affluent societies lower
SES is linked to poorer health. We consider the role of stress in this relationship.
We then consider stress at work in a subsequent section. For most people, their job
determines their income and therefore their SES. Indeed, researchers typically classify
individuals into social classes based on their occupation using formal classification
systems such as the UK National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC;
National Statistics, 2002). Most people spend a significant proportion of their lives at
work and evidence suggests that many people feel that it is a major source of stress
(Smith et al., 2000). Work stress is also of great interest to employers who need to
have healthy and productive workforces.
Work stress is also known to have implications beyond the work environment. If
we feel stress at work this cannot always be easily switched off when we go home and
similarly major problems in our personal lives may affect our work. Work stressors
may impact even more on our home lives if we work long hours and take work home
with us. Increasingly, the barriers between work and home are being eroded by new
technology and changing working patterns (Major and Germano, 2006). Therefore,
researchers have examined the relationships between work and home lives, looking
at such concepts as work–family conflict, work–home spillover and work–life balance.
In the final section of the chapter we discuss ways to intervene to reduce stress,
with a particular focus on work stress. This includes what governments, organizations
and individuals themselves can do to reduce stress. Thus there are four sections to this
chapter:1 socio-economic status, stress and health;
2 work stress and occupational health psychology;
3 stressors in work and home life;
4 preventing and reducing stress at work.