that negative events explained only 1 to 12 percent
of the variance in distress. This observation suggested
that the health impacts of stressful events
were being buffered or reduced by other factors.
Many investigators turned their attention to psychological
and social variables that might moderate
the effects of stress experiences on health
outcomes (described below under finding 5). Other
researchers reasoned that the weak to modest link
between negative events and health outcomes was
because there were important types of stressful
experiences that were not captured by checklists of
life changes (e.g., Turner, Wheaton, and Lloyd
1995; Wheaton 1999). More comprehensive measurement
of stressors might help to explain the
higher rates of illness, injury, disability, mortality,
psychological distress, and psychiatric disorder
found in lower-status, disadvantaged social groups
in the population (Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend
1974; Pearlin 1999; Turner et al. 1995), differences
which are sociologists’ main concern. In what follows,
I focus on findings from sociological work
that (1) included multiple types of stressors, (2)
described the distributions of stressors across sociodemographic
groups, and (3) examined the degree
to which stressful experiences account for health
differences by gender, age, race-ethnicity, marital
status, and socioeconomic status. Five major findings
emerge from these lines of research, each with
its own policy implications.