Stress, Work, Health and Restitution
Researchers at the Stockholm Stress Center seek to understand how changes in work and society affect people's health. The aim is to create better preventative measures and treatments for stress-related illnesses.
We now know that stress is a risk factor for contracting illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, depression and chronic fatigue. Yet there is still a lack of knowledge when it comes to basic correlations between work, stress and illness. For this reason, Stockholm University has established the Stockholm Stress Center in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet. The interdisciplinary centre is funded by the research council FAS.
Researchers from two of the University's departments participate in the centre's research. In one of many projects, the Stress Research Institute studies the psychobiological mechanisms thought to cause chronic fatigue. The hypothesis is that heightened stress disrupts the natural recovery that occurs during sleep. The research includes epidemiological studies of internal and external cohorts, field studies of psychological stress, and experimental studies of subjects in the sleep laboratory.
The section for work and organisational psychology in the Department of Psychology studies different aspects of workplace organisation. What is the impact of work environment upon perceived job satisfaction and objective health? What factors lead to having both healthy workers and an effective organisation? An important question is what impact the modern workplace – which is characterised by frequent organisational changes, temporary employment, perceived job insecurity, and an increasingly blurred line between work and private life – has on health. The research is based on large-scale surveys, as well as registry data and personal interviews.
Web editor:
Paul Parker
Last updated:
November 23, 2011
Source: Communications Office
