The Stress Process: An Appreciation of Leonard I. Pearlin

Abstract For more than 60 years, Leonard I. Pearlin's contributions to theory and research fundamentally shaped the sociology of mental health, medical sociology, and the sociology of aging and the life course. He died last year, and this article is an expression of appreciation for the person and his work as expressed by his colleagues, students, and friends. The testimonials collected here explain his seminal work and why it altered the field, describe how his intellectual leadership affected our own work, attest to his generous mentoring of students and young academics, and try to convey his character and why he has engendered such affection. The material quoted from selected Pearlin publications articulates most clearly why this work continues to resonate with sociologists concerned with the impact of society on the mental health of its members. Keywords stress process, stress proliferation, life course Leonard I. Pearlin created a body of work that has set the course for the sociological study of stress since its inception and did so with a warmth and grace equal to the preeminence of his scholarship, qualities that endeared him to his colleagues. He died July 23, 2014, at the age of 89 after a brief illness. For more than 60 years, his contributions to theory and research have fundamentally shaped the sociology of mental health, medical sociology, and the sociology of aging and the life course. In this article, his colleagues explain the seminal impact of his work on the field and their own scholarship and express their appreciation, esteem, and affection

The physical costs of AIDS caregiving

Informal care has become an increasingly important element in the delivery of health and social services to people living with HIV disease or AIDS (PWAs), yet the provision of such care does not come without costs to the caregiver. Instead, caregiving imposes burdens that may compromise caregiver health. Common ailments among AIDS caregivers were examined with two waves of data from a diverse sample of informal care providers in Los Angeles and San Francisco (N = 642). Symptoms of poor physical health are markedly present among AIDS caregivers and are significantly associated with care-related demands and stressors. This stress and health relationship varies significantly between caregivers who are HIV seropositive and those who are seronegative. Care-related effects are more direct among seronegative caregivers who are perhaps less overwhelmed with the maintenance of their own health. For all caregivers studied, level of depression and prior physical health are strong correlates of these physical ailments. Implications of these results are discussed.AIDS caregiving stress health

Depressive Symptom Trajectories, Aging-Related Stress, and Sexual Minority Stress Among Midlife and Older Gay Men

We concatenate 28 years of historical depressive symptoms data from a longitudinal cohort study of U.S. gay men who are now midlife and older (n = 312), with newly collected survey data to analyze trajectories of depressive symptomatology over time and their impact on associations between current stress and depressive symptoms. Symptoms are high over time, on average, and follow multiple trajectories. Aging-related stress, persistent life-course sexual minority stress, and increasing sexual minority stress are positively associated with depressive symptoms, net of symptom trajectories. Men who had experienced elevated and increasing trajectories of depressive symptoms are less susceptible to the damaging effects of aging-related stress than those who experienced a decrease in symptoms over time. Intervention efforts aimed at assisting gay men as they age should take into account life-course depressive symptom histories to appropriately contextualize the health effects of current social stressors

Sharing an Uncertain Future: Improved Survival and Stress Proliferation among Persons Living with HIV and their Caregivers

This chapter examines how the historically time-altered trajectory of HIV/AIDS in the United States has influenced the lives of persons living with HIV (PLH) and their midlife and older female caregivers. Our theoretical model integrates the concepts of linked lives, stress proliferation, and future uncertainty. We report on a study of 135 PLH and their caregiving wives or mothers. We find that, net of other stress covariates, future uncertainty is positively associated with depressive symptoms among PLH but not among caregivers. We identify “cross-person” effects in that the caregiver’s perceptions of future uncertainty are positively associated with PLH depressive symptoms

A multilevel analysis of ethnic variation in depressive symptoms among adolescents in the United States

This study examines linkages between ethnicity and symptoms of depression among adolescents, with a specific focus on the intersection of individual- and contextual-level risk factors. Data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a panel survey of a nationally representative United States sample (analytic N=18,473) of students in the 7th through 12th grades. Depressive symptoms are measured with a 16-item subscale of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. Hierarchical linear modeling is used to estimate the simultaneous effects of individual-level ethnicity, sex, age, family structure, and socioeconomic status (SES), and community-level ethnic composition and SES, operationalized by collapsing United States Census tract data to the school sampling area. There is significant variation in depressive symptoms among sampling areas and both individual- and contextual-level characteristics exert effects on depressive symptomatology. The impact of individual-level ethnicity on depressive symptoms depends upon characteristics of the sampling area, in that African American teens living within predominantly Non-Hispanic White areas are at especially high risk for frequent depressive symptoms. The findings demonstrate that the emotional consequences of membership in an ethnic group are in some instances contingent upon social context.Ethnicity Adolescent Depressive symptoms Multilevel USA