Wessel is course leader for and lecturer at the master course Stress, recovery and health (7,5 hp) within the master programme Population health: Societal and individual perspectives at the Department of Public Health Sciences.

Wessel has worked in a wide variety of research projects, for instance, the following:

Brain structure and functional connectivity later in life

Are brain structure and functional connectivity later in life influenced by midlife psychosocial work stress? Psychosocial stress at work has been suggested to play a role in the development of cognitive dysfunction, but evidence on the neural substrate (brain structure and function) of psychosocial work stress is scarce.
This project aims to examine the effect of middle-life psychosocial work stress and COVID-19 related changes in working conditions on brain structural and functional changes in later life, and to identify protective factors that can counteract the detrimental effect.
The study population will be derived from the ongoing national cohort study: the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH, 2006–2018), which consists of a random sample (n=500) of SLOSH participants who were aged 40-55 years in 2006. The dataset has biennially repeated measures of sociodemographic, lifestyle factors, cognition, and health status, as well as subjective and objective measures of psychosocial work stress over 12 years. Information regarding working condition changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be collected in 2021 and the sMRI and fMRI scans will be performed in 2021 (participants will be aged 55-70 years).
Understanding the role of psychosocial work stress in shaping our brain and identifying the associated protective factors may lead to the development of effective prevention strategies against cognitive dysfunction and brain damage. The identification of the COVID-19 pandemic induced changes in working conditions that have detrimental effects on brain health will provide additional evidence on the development of prevention strategies.

Sleep in everyday life

What role does sleep play for our well-being, thoughts and performance in everyday life and are there differences between young and older adults? These are the main objectives that we will investigate in this project.
From previous research we know that staying up for a whole night has several negative consequences that interestingly seem to be even more pronounced in young adults than in older adults. However, we know far less about how daily variations in sleep affect well-being and performance and even less so whether these consequences vary across adult age. This project will increase our understanding of how much sleep varies from day to day and how these variations affect well-being and performance in young and older adults.
Over a period of three weeks, the participants will answer questions on their sleep, thoughts and mood as well as perform short tests via a mobile application. The participants will also wear devices called actigraphs (activity meters) to get an estimate of their sleep.

ADAS&ME

ADAS&ME developed adaptive Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, that incorporated driver/rider state, situational/environmental context, and adaptive interaction to automatically transfer control between vehicle and driver/rider and thus ensure safer and more efficient road usage. To achieve this, a holistic approach was taken which considered automated driving along with information on driver/rider state. The work was based around 7 provisionally identified Use Cases for cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles, aiming to cover a large proportion of driving on European roads. Experimental research was carried out on algorithms for driver state monitoring as well as on HMI and automation transitions. It has developed robust detection/prediction algorithms for driver/rider state monitoring towards different driver states, such as fatigue, sleepiness, stress, inattention and impairing emotions, employing existing and novel sensing technologies, taking into account traffic and weather conditions via V2X and personalising them to individual driver's physiology and driving behaviour. In addition, the core development included multimodal and adaptive warning and intervention strategies based on current driver state and severity of scenarios. The final outcome was the successful fusion of the developed elements into an integrated driver/rider state monitoring system, able to both be utilised in and be supported by vehicle automation of Levels 1 to 4. The system was validated with a wide pool of drivers/riders under simulated and real road conditions and under different driver/rider states; with the use of 2 cars (1 conventional, 1 electric), 1 truck, 2 PTWs and 1 bus demonstrators. This challenging task has been undertaken by a multidisciplinary consortium of 30 partners, including an OEM per vehicle type and 7 Tier 1 suppliers.

Project CHARLES

Project CHARLES investigated how the new EASA-FTL rules affected performance and fatigue levels among Swedish airline pilots. It included a theoretical comparison before and after the new rules, as well as a field study among a randomised group of pilots, using sleep/wake diaries and actigraphy. The final report can be read here.

Project MODEL

Project MODEL looked into the hours of work and rest in different watch keeping regimes as well as among fishermen and tug crews. Working times were modelled and possibilities for sleep as well as fatigue levels were predicted based on the Three Process Model of Alertness regulation (TPMA). Furthermore, it was investigated how different circadian types (morning vs. evening people) were affected by the different working time regulations. Finally, it has tested how sensitive each working time arrangement is to over-time work. Schedules under investigation included for instance 6 on 6 off, 4 on 8 off, 12 on 12 off, 8 on 8 off, different variations of the 7/5/5/7-system as well as the the five and dime system.

Project EIGHTS

Project EIGHTS main aim was to compare the 6on6off maritime watch system with the 8/8/8 system. Both systems were compared in a field study where all participating dredger crew worked for three weeks under one system before crossing over to the other system. Sleepiness, stress, fatigue, and usage of fatigue countermeasures were measured and actigraphs were worn. In addition, a theoretical comparison between the two watch systems was made using the Three Process Model of Alertness regulation (TPMA). The project was funded by the British MCA and carried out in collaboration with Warsash Maritime Academy.

Project MARTHA

Fatigue at sea and related issues, such as stress and workload, are highly topical and important areas of research as the problems of mental health and wellbeing are being increasingly recognized by society. Ships’ crews are under increasing pressure from competitive voyage schedules and have to handle their tasks with fewer crew members. Evidence from accident records and research literature both point to the serious impact that sleepiness and fatigue may have on the safety and welfare of seafarers.
The shipping industry has recognized the need for research in this area and the findings from the predecessor, project HORIZON, have had a significant impact already on the understanding within the shipping industry of the importance of managing fatigue, both in terms of sleepiness and also in its longer term psycho-social effects. The latter is much less well-researched, and the results from the MARTHA project have indicated that fatigue and stress increase for most crew as the voyage length increases, and motivation decreases. Captains suffer more than their colleagues from both fatigue and stress. Port work is particularly demanding: the results also show that no one onboard gets adequate sleep, with the night watch keepers being particularly at risk of falling asleep. High sleepiness levels can occur at any stage of the voyage but the quantity and quality of sleep deteriorates over long voyages. The results from the use of actigraphy have also confirmed many of the perceptions of seafarers from their interviews and weekly diaries.
MARTHA was conducted by an international partnership of researchers and industry. The $3 million project was sponsored by the TK Foundation over a three year period from 2013 to 2016. The final report can be downloaded here.

Project ALFRED

Safe and reliable air transportation is of outmost importance to society. Air transportation is one of the safest forms of transportation per kilometer travelled, but when accidents do occur, they often result in serious injuries or deaths, damages to property, and a reduced sense of security for the general public. According to statistics from the Aircraft Crashes Record Office, 130 accidents (world wide) occurred in 2010 resulting in 1,115 deaths. A majority of these aviation accidents are related to human errors. Fatigue in airline crew is a well-established cause to impaired performance and has received much attention during the last years because of the recognition of its role in accidents as a contributing factor. Regulatory bodies (ICAO, FAA, EASA and others) are currently striving to improve regulation and guide airline operators towards a more direct usage of sleep and performance science rather than sole reliance on compliance with, often outdated, prescriptive flight and duty time limitations. ICAO has recently published guidance for alternative compliance1 called Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS). Regulators and the industry at large are in agreement that operating an FRMS allows for operators to enhance both flight safety and efficiency of the operation compared to a pure rule approach.
This project:
a) evaluated the fatigue predictions from the Three Process Model of Alertness against field data from airlines flight crew;
b) refined the fatigue prediction model usage further in the crew scheduling systems of one of the major schedule solution providers;
c) improved the fatigue model according to the empirical feedback;
d) developed context sensitive fatigue mitigation advice for airline crew to be integrated into a smartphone application
e) extended a commercially viable scheduling instrument with more detailed capability for fatigue risk analysis taking the flight mission context into account.

Project Horizon

Project Horizon was a major multi-partner European research study that brought together 11 academic institutions and shipping industry organisations with the agreed aim of delivering empirical data to provide a better understanding of the way in which watchkeeping patterns can affect ships’ watchkeepers. The broad spread of the project partners ensured expert objectivity of the project and its results, as well as widening routes for dissemination and exploitation of the findings.
The project was established to:
■ define and undertake scientific methods for measurement of fatigue in various realistic seagoing scenarios using bridge, engineroom and cargo simulators
■ capture empirical data on the cognitive performance of watchkeepers working within those realistic scenarios
■ assess the impact of fatigue on decision-making performance
■ and determine arrangements for minimising risks to ships and their cargoes, seafarers, passengers and the marine environment
The project's final report can be found here.