A Multi-Level Approach to Job Stress
By Kay Bechtold
June 17, 2026—Work is a source of daily stress for many people, regardless of industry or occupation, but occupational and environmental health and safety professionals can help address it, like any other workplace hazard, Jenn Cavallari, ScD, CIH, told attendees of an educational session at AIHA Connect on June 2. Cavallari, who is co-director of the Center for the Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW), a NIOSH-funded Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health, described stress as more than our bodies’ response to moments of danger and fear: it’s also a “reaction to other pressures that we might feel,” such as getting sick, getting hurt, or feeling emotional pressure, she said. But no matter the source, our bodies respond by releasing stress hormones to prepare us to take action, explained Cavallari, who is also a professor in the UConn School of Medicine Department of Public Health Sciences. She noted that today’s stressors—economic uncertainty, environmental concerns, and political and social instability, to name a few—are “much different than those faced by our ancestors.”
“More often than not, our stressors are mental and social in nature, and they last longer,” she said. “Yet our bodies are reacting in the same way, like it’s a life-or-death situation.”
She encouraged audience members to think of stress as a process. In the short term, stress can improve reaction time, but chronic stress can cause what Cavallari referred to as strain, or wear and tear on the body.
“Research is building about the effects stress has on our body’s systems,” she explained. “Over the long term, there can be effects of that stress as it builds up. That’s where major health problems can come in. These can become severe and may require medical attention.”
Manageable stress can be a source of growth for a worker and have positive effects on the individual and their organization—for example, a worker who experiences stress as a positive challenge may be more engaged at work—but “more often than not, work stress is not manageable,” Cavallari said. According to NIOSH, job stress occurs “when the requirements of a job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker” and “can lead to poor health and even injury.” And if job stress goes unaddressed, Cavallari warned that it “can lead to serious work-related strain” with a range of unfavorable outcomes, including loss of enthusiasm among workers, decreased productivity and performance, and problems with employee retention.
Job stress can stem from a number of sources, including the organization of work or job design and the physical and psychosocial conditions at a workplace as well as factors that Cavallari referred to as “outside the traditional workplace,” like an individual’s home or community environment and personal health behaviors. She recommended that OEHS professionals take a Total Worker Health approach to job stress, which also accounts for nonwork conditions. This means considering work stressors like overload, lack of job control, and irregular work hours, as well as stressors that workers might bring from their home lives. Even hazards such as noise, extreme temperatures, harmful chemicals, and unsafe equipment may play a role in stress, Cavallari added. Job stress can further affect workers’ ability to connect with others and get the sleep and rest they need to recover, which Cavallari described as “essential to staying healthy and effective at work.”
“Not only does job stress affect the things that keep us healthy, but it has the tendency to increase poor coping strategies,” she said.
Cavallari outlined several opportunities for OEHS professionals to intervene in the process of stress. She encouraged audience members to focus on a comprehensive approach comprising three levels of prevention to improve mental health in the workplace. The first is to address potential stressors up front to “[prevent] the stress from causing distress,” she said. This might look like ensuring that workers have sufficient time to complete tasks or reducing noise in the workplace. But if workers are already stressed, OEHS professionals should work to minimize its harmful effects. An example of an intervention for this second level of prevention is helping workers use stress-reduction techniques to prevent them from feeling distressed. And because long-term stress can lead to health impacts, tertiary prevention—which Cavallari defined as “[preventing] chronic stress from severely straining health”—is important. This level of prevention may include providing job-protected sick leave or cognitive behavioral therapy to workers.
As with traditional workplace hazards, putting job stress into perspective comes down to the hierarchy of controls. Cavallari urged OEHS professionals to “think about the top of the pyramid when we think about workplace mental health issues”—for example, look to eliminate mandatory overtime or remove dangerous machinery—and to engage employees to help identify which interventions are important to their workforce.
“The process of how change is introduced is just as important as what is introduced, so getting buy-in from employees is key,” she said.
Resources for reducing stress at work and additional information for OEHS professionals can be found on the CPH-NEW website.
Kay Bechtold is the managing editor of The Synergist.