The DOI matches its Crossref record; 124 of the 124 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Ten Surprising Facts About Stressful Life Events and Disease Risk
Open accessAbstract
After over 70 years of research on the association between stressful life events and health, it is generally accepted that we have a good understanding of the role of stressors in disease risk. In this review, we highlight that knowledge but also emphasize misunderstandings and weaknesses in this literature with the hope of triggering further theoretical and empirical development. We organize this review in a somewhat provocative manner, with each section focusing on an important issue in the literature where we feel that there has been some misunderstanding of the evidence and its implications. Issues that we address include the definition of a stressful event, characteristics of diseases that are impacted by events, differences in the effects of chronic and acute events, the cumulative effects of events, differences in events across the life course, differences in events for men and women, resilience to events, and methodological challenges in the literature.
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“not all individuals who experience life stress develop MDD and/or a physical disease153,154.”
From Comorbidity between major depressive disorder and physical diseases: a comprehensive review of epidemiology, mechanisms and management (2023) · cites this paper as [153]
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Cites
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“In other words, we are not denying the possibility that progressive biological wear and tear that occurs with chronic or cumulative stressful life events may result in increased disease risk (Juster et al. 2010, McEwen 1998).”
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Social Relationships and Health.
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Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: Tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight.
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- Brown GW, Harris TO. 1989. Life Events and Illness . New York: Guilford Press
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- Cohen F, 1982, Stress and Human Health: Analysis and Implication of Research, 147
- Cohen S, 2016, Scientists Making a Difference: The Greatest Living Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk About Their Most Important Contributions, 419
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Slavich, G. M. (2020) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032816-045159 · Cited by 502
Karyotaki, E., Cuijpers, P., Albor, Y., Alonso, J., Auerbach, R. P., Bantjes, J., Bruffaerts, R., Ebert, D. D., Hasking, P., Kiekens, G., et al. (2020) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01759 · Cited by 389
Berk, M., Köhler‐Forsberg, O., Turner, M., Penninx, B. W. J. H., Wrobel, A., Firth, J., Loughman, A., Reavley, N. J., McGrath, J. J., Momen, N. C., et al. (2023) · World Psychiatry · doi:10.1002/wps.21110 · Cited by 336
Stress and cardiovascular disease: an update
Vaccarino, V., & Bremner, J. (2024) · Nature Reviews Cardiology · doi:10.1038/s41569-024-01024-y · Cited by 229
Schneider, E. E., Schönfelder, S., Domke-Wolf, M., & Wessa, M. (2020) · International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.ijchp.2020.03.004 · Cited by 213
Metadata
- Authors
- Cohen, S., Murphy, M. L. M., & Prather, A. A.
- Affiliations
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Psychology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2019-01-04
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 577-597
- ISSN
- 0066-4308 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2085
- PMC
- PMC6996482
- OpenAlex
- W2811485232
- Cited by
- 531
- References
- 124
- Citations by year
- 2026: 58 · 2025: 82 · 2024: 82 · 2023: 92 · 2022: 88 · 2021: 74 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 18
- FWCI
- 3.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annual Review of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (R24AG048024)
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (R01AT006694)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Keywords
- life events, disease risk, chronic stress, acute stress, cumulative stress, life course, sex differences, resilience, methodological issues, health effects of stress
- MeSH terms
- Cardiovascular Diseases, Communicable Diseases, Depressive Disorder, Humans, Life Change Events, Neoplasms, Stress, Psychological
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