The impact of stress on health. The case of the Baltic states during the transition

Catherine Gaumé, Université Catholique de Louvain

The Baltic Countries experienced broad variations in mortality level during the fifteen last years of the last century. Men at working ages are the principal group concerned and the crisis is mainly explained by an upsurge of violent and cardiovascular deaths. Demographers have provided different explanations often linked with economical, social and political upheavals. In this paper, we would like to explore the psychological sphere and present our privileged hypotheses mainly based on stress. Multinomial logistic regressions will be performed using the data from The Norbalt Living Conditions Surveys carried out in 1994 and 1999. We expect to see population rated their health better in 1999 compared to five years before. We also presume to see an association between stressors and bad health. Finally, we expect that if the association between stress and health is strong in 1994, it will not be the case in 1999, because people found coping strategies.