Social Stress and Illness in Industrial Society.

Abstract

Both physical and social features of the environment can be shown to be related to acute and to chronic illness. Studies of men aboard naval vessels deployed at sea illustrate how hazards in the environment, physical or social, affect accident and acute illness rates. Chronic illness, perhaps typical of our times may be etiologically linked with excessive stress, which may be a product of social factors in advanced technological societies. Richard Rahe's studies show how social crises are correlated with subsequent illness, and Lennart Levi's studies provide some physiological foundations for understanding the phenomena.