Medical Health Encyclopedia

Individuals at Higher Risk for Stress. Studies indicate that the following people are more vulnerable to the effects of stress than others:

• Older adults. As people age, the ability to achieve a relaxation response after a stressful event becomes more difficult. Aging may simply wear out the systems in the brain that respond to stress, so that they become inefficient. The elderly, too, are very often exposed to major stressors such as medical problems, the loss of a spouse and friends, a change in a living situation, and financial worries. No one is immune to stress, however, and it may simply go unnoticed in the very young and old.
• Women in general and working mothers specifically. Working mothers, regardless of whether they are married or single, face higher stress levels and possibly adverse health effects, most likely because they bear a greater and more diffuse work load than men or other women. This has been observed in women in the US and in Europe. Such stress may also have a domino and harmful effect on their children. (It is not clear, however, if stress has the same adverse effects on women's hearts as it does on men's.)
• Less educated individuals.
• Divorced or widowed individuals. (A number of studies indicate that unmarried people generally do not live as long as their married contemporaries.)
• Anyone experiencing financial strain, particularly long-term unemployed and those without health insurance.
• Isolated individuals.
• People who are targets of racial or sexual discrimination.
• People who live in cities.

Childhood Factors

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Children are frequent victims of stress because they are often unable to communicate their feelings accurately or their responses to events over which they have no control. (Certain physical symptoms, notably recurrent abdominal pain without a known cause, may be indicators of stress in children.)