Meta An Segerstrom

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Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.
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Psychol Bull. 2004 July ; 130(4): 601–630.
Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-

Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry
Suzanne C. Segerstrom and

University of Kentucky
Gregory E. Miller
University of British Columbia
Abstract
The present report meta-analyzes more than 300 empirical articles describing a relationship between
psychological stress and parameters of the immune system in human participants. Acute stressors
(lasting minutes) were associated with potentially adaptive upregulation of some parameters of
natural immunity and downregulation of some functions of specific immunity. Brief naturalistic
stressors (such as exams) tended to suppress cellular immunity while preserving humoral immunity.
Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral measures. Effects
of event sequences varied according to the kind of event (trauma vs. loss). Subjective reports of stress
generally did not associate with immune change. In some cases, physical vulnerability as a function
of age or disease also increased vulnerability to immune change during stressors.
Since the dawn of time, organisms have been subject to evolutionary pressure from the
environment. The ability to respond to environmental threats or stressors such as predation or
natural disaster enhanced survival and therefore reproductive capacity, and physiological
responses that supported such responses could be selected for. In mammals, these responses
include changes that increase the delivery of oxygen and glucose to the heart and the large
skeletal muscles. The result is physiological support for adaptive behaviors such as “fight or
flight.” Immune responses to stressful situations may be part of these adaptive responses
because, in addition to the risk inherent in the situation (e.g., a predator), fighting and fleeing
carries the risk of injury and subsequent entry of infectious agents into the bloodstream or skin.
Any wound in the skin is likely to contain pathogens that could multiply and cause infection
(Williams & Leaper, 1998). Stress-induced changes in the immune system that could accelerate
wound repair and help prevent infections from taking hold would therefore be adaptive and
selected along with other physiological changes that increased evolutionary fitness.
Modern humans rarely encounter many of the stimuli that commonly evoked fight-or-flight
responses for their ancestors, such as predation or inclement weather without protection.
However, human physiological response continues to reflect the demands of earlier
environments. Threats that do not require a physical response (e.g., academic exams) may
therefore have physical consequences, including changes in the immune system. Indeed, over
the past 30 years, more than 300 studies have been done on stress and immunity in humans,
and together they have shown that psychological challenges are capable of modifying various
features of the immune response. In this article we attempt to consolidate empirical knowledge
about psychological stress and the human immune system through meta-analysis. Both the
construct of stress and the human immune system are complex, and both could consume book-
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Suzanne C. Segerstrom, Department of Psychology, University of
Kentucky, 115 Kastle Hall, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, or Gregory E. Miller, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia,
2136 West Mall, Vancou-ver, British Columbia V6T IZ4, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]
Segerstrom and Miller Page 2 of 55
length reviews. Our review, therefore, focuses on those aspects that are most often represented
in the stress and immunity literature and therefore directly relevant to the meta-analysis.
Conceptualizing Stress
Despite nearly a century of research on various aspects of stress, investigators still find it
difficult to achieve consensus on a satisfactory definition of this concept. Most of the studies
contributing to this review simply define stress as circumstances that most people would find
stressful, that is, stressors. We adopted Elliot and Eisdorfer’s (1982) taxonomy to characterize
these stressors. This taxonomy has the advantage of distinguishing among stressors on two
important dimensions: duration and course (e.g., discrete vs. continuous). The taxonomy
includes five categories of stressors. Acute time-limited stressors involve laboratory challenges
such as public speaking or mental arithmetic. Brief naturalistic stressors, such as academic
examinations, involve a person confronting a real-life short-term challenge. In stressful event
sequences, a focal event, such as the loss of a spouse or a major natural disaster, gives rise to
a series of related challenges. Although affected individuals usually do not know exactly when
these challenges will subside, they have a clear sense that at some point in the future they will.
Chronic stressors, unlike the other demands we have described, usually pervade a person’s
life, forcing him or her to restructure his or her identity or social roles. Another feature of
chronic stressors is their stability—the person either does not know whether or when the
challenge will end or can be certain that it will never end. Examples of chronic stressors include
suffering a traumatic injury that leads to physical disability, providing care for a spouse with
severe dementia, or being a refugee forced out of one’s native country by war. Distant
stressors are traumatic experiences that occurred in the distant past yet have the potential to
continue modifying immune system function because of their long-lasting cognitive and
emotional sequelae (Baum, Cohen, & Hall, 1993). Examples of distant stressors include having
been sexually assaulted as a child, having witnessed the death of a fellow soldier during combat,
and having been a prisoner of war.
In addition to the presence of difficult circumstances, investigators also use life-event

interviews and life-event checklists to capture the total number of different stressors
encountered over a specified time frame. Depending on the instrument, the focus of these
assessments can be either major life events (e.g., getting divorced, going bankrupt) or minor
daily hassles (e.g., getting a speeding ticket, having to clean up a mess in the house). With the
more sophisticated instruments, judges then code stressor severity according to how the
average person in similar biographical circumstances would respond (e.g., S. Cohen et al.,
1998; Evans et al., 1995).
A smaller number of studies enrolled large populations of adults who were not experiencing
any specific difficulty and examined whether their immune responses varied according to their
reports of perceived stress, intrusive thoughts, or both. Other studies have examined stressed
populations, in which a larger range of subjective responses may be detected. This work grows
out of the view that people’s biological responses to stressful circumstances are heavily
dependent on their appraisals of the situation and cognitive and emotional responses to it
(Baum et al., 1993; Frankenhauser, 1975; Tomaka, Blascovich, Kibler, & Ernst, 1997).
Overview of the Immune System

As many behavioral scientists are unfamiliar with the details of the immune system, we provide
a brief overview. For a more complete treatment, the reader is directed to the sources for the
information presented here (Benjamini, Coico, & Sunshine, 2000; Janeway & Travers, 1997;
Rabin, 1999). Critical characteristics of various immune components and assays are also listed
in Table 1.

Components of the Immune System

There are several useful ways of dividing elements of the immune response. For the purposes
of understanding the relationship of psychosocial stressors to the immune system, it is useful

to distinguish between natural and specific immunity. Natural immunity is an immune response
that is characteristic not only of mammals but also lower order organisms such as sponges.
Cells involved in natural immunity do not provide defense against any particular pathogen;
rather, they are all-purpose cells that can attack a number of different pathogens1 and do so in
a relatively short time frame (minutes to hours) when challenged. The largest group of cells
involved in natural immunity is the granulocytes. These cells include the neutrophil and the
macrophage, phagocytic cells that, as their name implies, eat their targets. The generalized
response mounted by these cells is inflammation, in which neutrophils and macrophages
congregate at the site of injury or infection, release toxic substances such as oxygen radicals
that damage invaders, and phagocytose both invaders and damaged tissue. Macrophages in
particular also release communication molecules, or cytokines, that have broad effects on the
organism, including fever and inflammation, and also promote wound healing. These
proinflammatory cytokines include interleukin(IL)-1, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha
(TNFα). Other granulocytes include the mast cell and the eosinophil, which are involved in
parasitic defense and allergy.
Another cell involved in natural immunity is the natural killer cell. Natural killer cells recognize
the lack of a self-tissue molecule on the surface of cells (characteristic of many kinds of virally
infected and some cancerous cells) and lyse those cells by releasing toxic substances on them.
Natural killer cells are thought to be important in limiting the early phases of viral infections,
before specific immunity becomes effective, and in attacking self-cells that have become
malignant.
Finally, complement is a family of proteins involved in natural immunity. Complement protein

bound to microorganisms can up-regulate phagocytosis and inflammation. Complement can
also aid in antibody-mediated immunity (discussed below as part of the specific immune
response).
Specific immunity is characterized by greater specificity and less speed than the natural
immune response. Lymphocytes have receptor sites on their cell surfaces. The receptor on each
cell fits with one and only one small molecular shape, or antigen, on a given invader and
therefore responds to one and only one kind of invader. When activated, these antigen-specific
cells divide to create a population of cells with the same antigen specificity in a process called
clonal proliferation, or the proliferative response. Although this process is efficient in terms
of the number of cells that have to be supported on a day-to-day basis, it creates a delay of up
to several days before a full defense is mounted, and the body must rely on natural immunity
to contain the infection during this time.
There are three types of lymphocytes that mediate specific immunity: T-helper cells, T-
cytotoxic cells, and B cells. The main function of T-helper cells is to produce cytokines that
direct and amplify the rest of the immune response. T-cytotoxic cells recognize antigen
expressed by cells that are infected with viruses or otherwise compromised (e.g., cancer cells)
and lyse those cells. B cells produce soluble proteins called antibody that can perform a number
of functions, including neutralizing bacterial toxins, binding to free virus to prevent its entry
1The term pathogen is used here to refer to microorganisms that can cause disease. This term is most appropriate in the evolutionary
context we proposed in the article’s introduction because it focuses on susceptibility to infection. However, the reader should be aware
that pathogens are only a subset of antigens, that is, all substances that evoke an immune response. Other antigenic substances include,
for example, transformed self-cells (i.e., cancer cells), transplanted tissue, and allergens (i.e., antigens that evoke an allergic response).

into cells, and opsonization, in which a coating of antibody increases the effectiveness of natural
immunity. There are five kinds of antibody: Immunoglobulin (Ig) A is found in secretions, IgE
binds to mast cells and is involved in allergy, IgM is a large molecule that clears antigen from
the bloodstream, IgG is a smaller antibody that diffuses into tissue and crosses the placenta,
and IgD is of unknown significance but may be produced by immature B cells.
An important immunological development is the recognition that specific immunity in humans

is composed of cellular and humoral responses. Cellular immune responses are mounted
against intracellular pathogens like viruses and are coordinated by a subset of T-helper
lymphocytes called Th1 cells. In the Th1 response, the T-helper cell produces cytokines,
including IL-2 and interferon gamma (IFNγ). These cytokines selectively activate T-cytotoxic
cells as well as natural killer cells. Humoral immune responses are mounted against
extracellular pathogens such as parasites and bacteria; they are coordinated by a subset of T-
helper lymphocytes called Th2 cells. In the Th2 response, the T-helper cell produces different
cytokines, including IL-4 and IL-10, which selectively activate B cells and mast cells to combat
extracellular pathogens.
Immune Assays
Immune assays can quantify cells, proteins, or functions. The most basic parameter is a simple
count of the number of cells of different subtypes (e.g., neutrophils, macrophages), typically
from peripheral blood. It is important to have an adequate number of different types of immune
cells in the correct proportions. However, the normal range for these enumerative parameters
is quite large, so that “correct” numbers and proportions can cover a wide range, and small
changes are unlikely to have any clinical significance in healthy humans.
Protein production—either of antibody or cytokines—can be measured in vitro by stimulating

cells and measuring protein in the supernatant or in vivo by measuring protein in peripheral
blood. For both antibody and cytokine, higher protein production may represent a more robust
immune response that can confer protection against disease. Two exceptions are levels of
proinflammatory cytokines (IL-1, IL-6, and TNFα) and antibody against latent virus.
Proinflammatory cytokines are increased with systemic inflammation, a risk factor for poorer
health resulting from cardiac disease, diabetes mellitus, or osteoporosis (Ershler & Keller,
2000; Luster, 1998; Papanicoloaou, Wilder, Manolagas, & Chrousos, 1998). Antibody
production against latent virus occurs when viral replication triggers the immune system to
produce antibodies in an effort to contain the infection. Most people become infected with
latent viruses such as Epstein-Barr virus during adolescence and remain asymptomatically
infected for the rest of their lives. Various processes can activate these latent viruses, however,
so that they begin actively replicating. These processes may include a breakdown in cellular
immune response (Jenkins & Baum, 1995). Higher antibody against latent viruses, therefore,
may indicate poorer immune control over the virus.
Functional assays, which are performed in vitro, measure the ability of cells to perform specific
activities. In each case, higher values may represent more effective immune function. Neutro-
phils’ function can be quantified by their ability to migrate in a laboratory assay and their ability
to release oxygen radicals. The natural killer cytotoxicity assay measures the ability of natural
killer cells to lyse a sensitive target cell line. Lymphocyte proliferation can be stimulated with
mitogens that bypass antigen specificity to activate cells or by stimulating the T cell receptor.
Pathways Between Stress and the Immune System

How could stress “get inside the body” to affect the immune response? First, sympathetic fibers
descend from the brain into both primary (bone marrow and thymus) and secondary (spleen

and lymph nodes) lymphoid tissues (Felten & Felten, 1994). These fibers can release a wide
variety of substances that influence immune responses by binding to receptors on white blood
cells (Ader, Cohen, & Felten, 1995; Felten & Felten, 1994; Kemeny, Solomon, Morley, &
Herbert, 1992; Rabin, 1999). Though all lymphocytes have adrenergic receptors, differential
density and sensitivity of adrenergic receptors on lymphocytes may affect responsiveness to
stress among cell subsets. For example, natural killer cells have both high-density and high-
affinity β2-adrenergic receptors, B cells have high density but lower affinity, and T cells have
the lowest density (Anstead, Hunt, Carlson, & Burki, 1998; Landmann, 1992; Maisel, Fowler,
Rearden, Motulsky, & Michel, 1989). Second, the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, the
sympathetic–adrenal–medullary axis, and the hypothalamic–pituitary–ovarian axis secrete the
adrenal hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol; the pituitary hormones prolactin
and growth hormone; and the brain peptides melatonin, β-endorphin, and enkephalin. These
substances bind to specific receptors on white blood cells and have diverse regulatory effects
on their distribution and function (Ader, Felten, & Cohen, 2001). Third, people’s efforts to
manage the demands of stressful experience sometimes lead them to engage in behaviors—
such as alcohol use or changes in sleeping patterns—that also could modify immune system
processes (Kiecolt-Glaser & Glaser, 1988). Thus, behavior represents a potentially important
pathway linking stress with the immune system.
Maier and Watkins (1998) proposed an even closer relationship between stress and immune
function: that the immunological changes associated with stress were adapted from the
immunological changes in response to infection. Immunological activation in mammals results

in a syndrome called sickness behavior, which consists of behavioral changes such as reduction
in activity, social interaction, and sexual activity, as well as increased responsiveness to pain,
anorexia, and depressed mood. This syndrome is probably adaptive in that it results in energy
conservation at a time when such energy is best directed toward fighting infection. Maier and
Watkins drew parallels between the behavioral, neuroendo-crine, and thermoregulatory
responses to sickness and stress. The common thread between the two is the energy
mobilization and redirection that is necessary to fight attackers both within and without.
Models of Stress, the Immune System, and Health

Conceptualizations of the nature of the relationship between stress and the immune system
have changed over time. Selye’s (1975) finding of thymic involution led to an initial model in
which stress is broadly immunosuppressive. Early human studies supported this model,
reporting that chronic forms of stress were accompanied by reduced natural killer cell
cytotoxicity, suppressed lymphocyte proliferative responses, and blunted humoral responses
to immunization (see S. Cohen, Miller, & Rabin, 2001; Herbert & Cohen, 1993;Kiecolt-Glaser,
Glaser, Gravenstein, Malarkey, & Sheridan, 1996, for reviews). Diminished immune responses
of this nature were assumed to be responsible for the heightened incidence of infectious and
neoplastic diseases found among chronically stressed individuals (Andersen, Kiecolt-Glaser,
& Glaser, 1994; S. Cohen & Williamson, 1991).
Although the global immunosuppression model enjoyed long popularity and continues to be
influential, the broad decreases in immune function it predicts would not have been
evolutionarily adaptive in life-threatening circumstances. Dhabhar and McEwen (1997,
2001) proposed that acute fight-or-flight stressors should instead cause redistribution of
immune cells into the compartments in which they can act the most quickly and efficiently
against invaders. In a series of experiments with mice, they found that during acute stress, T
cells selectively redistributed into the skin, where they contributed to enhancement of the
immune response. In contrast, during chronic stress, T cells were shunted away from the skin,
and the immune response to skin test challenge was diminished (Dhabhar & McEwen, 1997).

On the basis of these findings they proposed a biphasic model in which acute stress enhances,
and chronic stress suppresses, the immune response.
A modification of this model posits that short-term changes in all components of the immune
system (natural and specific) are unlikely to occur because they would expend too much energy
to be adaptive in life-threatening circumstances. Instead, stress should shift the balance of the
immune response toward activating natural processes and diminishing specific processes. The
premise underlying this model is that natural immune responses are better suited to managing
the potential complications of life-threatening situations than specific immune responses
because they can unfold much more rapidly, are subject to fewer inhibitory constraints, and
require less energy to be diverted from other bodily systems that support the fight-or-flight
response (Dopp, Miller, Myers, & Fahey, 2000; Sapolsky, 1998).
Even with this modification of the biphasic model, neither it nor the global immunosuppression
model sufficiently explains findings that link chronic stress with both disease outcomes
associated with inadequate immunity (infectious and neoplastic disease) and disease outcomes
associated with excessive immune activity (allergic and autoimmune disease). To resolve this
paradox, some researchers have chosen to focus on how chronic stress might shift the balance
of the immune response. The most well-known of these models hypothesizes that chronic stress
elicits simultaneous enhancement and suppression of the immune response by altering patterns
of cytokine secretion (Marshall et al., 1998). Th1 cytokines, which activate cellular immunity
to provide defense against many kinds of infection and some kinds of neoplastic disease, are
suppressed. This suppression has permissive effects on production of Th2 cytokines, which
activate humoral immunity and exacerbate allergy and many kinds of autoimmune disease.
This shift can occur via the effects of stress hormones such as cortisol (Chiappelli, Manfrini,
Franceschi, Cossarizza, & Black, 1994). Th1-to-Th2 shift changes the balance of the immune
response without necessarily changing the overall level of activation or function within the
system. Because a diminished Th1-mediated cellular immune response could increase
vulnerability to infectious and neoplastic disease, and an enhanced Th-2 mediated humoral
immune response could increase vulnerability to autoimmune and allergic diseases, this
cytokine shift model also is able to reconcile patterns of stress-related immune change with
patterns of stress-related disease outcomes (Marshall et al., 1998).
Who Is Vulnerable to Stress-Induced Immune Changes?

If the stress response in the immune system evolved, a healthy organism should not be adversely
affected by activation of this response because such an effect would likely have been selected
against. Although there is direct evidence that stress-related immunosuppression can increase
vulnerability to disease in animals (e.g., Ben Eliyahu, Shakhar, Page, Stefanski, & Shakhar,
2000; Quan et al., 2001; Shavit et al., 1985; Sheridan et al., 1998), there is little or no evidence
linking stress-related immune change in healthy humans to disease vulnerability. Even large
stress-induced immune changes can have small clinical consequences because of the
redundancy of the immune system’s components or because they do not persist for a sufficient
duration to enhance disease susceptibility. In short, the immune system is remarkably flexible
and capable of substantial change without compromising an otherwise healthy host.
However, the flexibility of the immune system can be compromised by age and disease. As
humans age, the immune system becomes senescent (Boucher et al., 1998; Wikby, Johansson,
Ferguson, & Olsson, 1994). As a consequence, older adults are less able to respond to vaccines
and mount cellular immune responses, which in turn may contribute to early mortality
(Ferguson, Wikby, Maxson, Olsson, & Johansson, 1995; Wayne, Rhyne, Garry, & Goodwin,
1990). The decreased ability of the immune system to respond to stimulation is one indicator
of its loss of flexibility.

Loss of self-regulation is also characteristic of disease states. In autoimmune disease, for

example, the immune system treats self-tissue as an invader, attacking it and causing pathology
such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and lupus. Immune reactions
can also be exaggerated and pathological, as in asthma, and suggest loss of self-regulation.
Finally, infection with HIV progressively incapacitates T-helper cells, leading to loss of the
regulation usually provided by these cells. Although each of these diseases has distinct clinical
consequences, the change in the immune system from flexible and balanced to inflexible and
unbalanced suggests increased vulnerability to stress-related immune dysregulation;
furthermore, dysregulation in the presence of disease may have clinical consequences (e.g.,
Bower, Kemeny, Taylor, & Fahey, 1998).
The Present Analysis

We performed a meta-analysis of published results linking stress and the immune system. We
feel that this area is in particular need of a quantitative review because of the methodological
nature of most studies in this area. For practical and economic reasons, many
psychoneuroimmunology studies have a relatively small sample size, creating the possibility
of Type II error. Furthermore, many studies examine a broad range of immunological
parameters, creating the possibility of Type I error. A quantitative review, of which meta-
analysis is the best example, can better distinguish reliable effects from those arising from both
Type I and Type II error than can a qualitative review.
We combined studies in such a way as to test the models of stress and immune change reviewed
above. First, we examined each stressor type separately, yielding separate effects for stressors
of different duration and trajectory. Second, we examined both healthy and medical
populations, allowing comparison of the effects of stress on resilient and vulnerable
populations; along the same lines, we also examined the effects of age. Finally, we examined
all immune parameters separately so that patterns of response (e.g., global immunosuppression
vs. cytokine shift) would be clearer.
Method
Article Identification
Articles for the meta-analysis were identified through computerized literature searches and
searches of reference lists. MEDLINE and PsycINFO were searched for the years 1960 –2001.
Following the example of Herbert and Cohen (1993), we used the terms stress, hassles, and
life events in combination with the term immune to search both databases. The reference lists
of 11 review articles on stress and the immune system (Benschop, Geenen, et al., 1998; Biondi,
2001; Cacioppo, 1994; S. Cohen & Herbert, 1996; S. Cohen et al., 2001; Herbert & Cohen,
1993; Kiecolt-Glaser, Cacioppo, Malarkey, & Glaser, 1992; Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles,
& Glaser, 2002; Maier, Watkins, & Fleshner, 1994; O’Leary, 1990; Zorrilla et al., 2001) were
then searched to identify additional articles.
We selected only articles that met a number of inclusion criteria. The first criterion was that
the work had to include a measure of stress. This criterion could be met if a sample experiencing
a stressor was compared with an unstressed control group, if a sample experiencing a stressor
was compared with itself at a baseline that could reasonably be considered low stress, or if
differing degrees of stress in a sample were assessed with an explicit measure of stress. This
criterion was not met if, for example, anxiety—an affective state—was used as a proxy for
stress, or it seemed likely that a “baseline” assessment occurred during periods of significant
stress. The second criterion was that the stressor had to be psychosocial. Stressors that included
a significant physical element such as pain, cold, or physical exhaustion were eliminated (e.g.,
Antarctic isolation, space flight, military training). The third criterion was that the work had

to include a measure of the immune system. This criterion was met by any enumerative or
functional in vitro or in vivo immune assay. However, clinical disease outcomes such as HIV
progression or rhinovirus infection did not meet this criterion. Finally, we eliminated articles
from which a meaningful effect size could not be abstracted. For example, when between- and
within-subjects observations were treated as independent, the reported effect was likely to be
inflated. In a few cases, effects of stress and clinical status were confounded—that is, a stressed
clinical group was compared with an unstressed healthy group—and hence these studies were
excluded from the meta-analysis.
Stressor Classification
We coded stressors in the articles into five classes: acute time-limited, brief naturalistic, event
sequence, chronic, and distant. The most difficult distinctions among event sequence, chronic,
and distant stressors were based on temporal and qualitative considerations. Event sequences
included discrete stressors occurring 1 year or less before immune assessment and could be of
any severity. These were most often normative stressors such as bereavement. Chronic stressors
were ongoing stressors such as caregiving and disability. Distant stressors were severe,
traumatic events that could meet the stressor criterion for posttraumatic stress disorder
(American Psychiatric Association, 1994), such as combat exposure or abuse, and had
happened more than 1 year before immune assessment. Most stressors in this category occurred
5 to 10 years before immune assessment. Disagreements in stressor classification were resolved
by consensus. Subgroups for moderator analyses were similarly decided.
The Meta-Analysis
Overview of procedures—Meta-analysis is a tool for synthesizing research findings. It
proceeds in two phases. In the first, effect sizes are computed for each study. An effect size
represents the magnitude of the relationship between two variables, independent of sample
size. In this context it can be viewed as a measure of how much two groups, one experiencing
a stressor and the other not, differ on a specific immune outcome. In the second phase, effect
sizes from individual studies are combined to arrive at an aggregate effect size for each immune
outcome of interest.
We used Pearson’s r as the effect size metric in this meta-analysis. Effect sizes for individual
studies were computed using descriptive statistics presented in the original published reports.
When these statistics were not available, we requested them from authors. This strategy was
successful in most circumstances. To compute Pearson’s r from descriptive statistics in
between-subjects designs, we subtracted the control group mean from the stressed group mean
and divided this value by the pooled sample standard deviation. The value that emerged from
this computation, known as Cohen’s d, was then converted into a Pearson’s r by taking the
square root of the quantity d2/(d2 + 4). (See Rosenthal, 1994.) To compute Pearson’s r from
descriptive statistics in within-subjects designs, we subtracted the group mean at baseline from
the group mean during stress and divided this quantity by the sample standard deviation at
baseline. This d value was converted into a Pearson’s r by taking the square root of the quantity
d2/(d2 + 4). In cases in which descriptive statistics were not available, Pearson’s r was computed
from inferential statistics using standard formulae (Rosenthal, 1994). These formulae had to
be modified slightly for studies that used within-subjects designs because effect sizes are
systematically overestimated when they are calculated from repeated measures test statistics
(Dunlap, Cortina, Vaslow, & Burke, 1996). In these situations we derived effect size estimates
using the formula d = tc[2 (1 − r)]1/2, where tc corresponds to the value of the t statistic for
correlated measures, and r corresponds to the value of the correlation between outcome
measures at pretest and posttest (Dunlap et al., 1996). Because very few studies reported the
value of r, we used a value of .60 to compute effect sizes in this meta-analysis. This represents

the average correlation between pre-stress and poststress measures of immune function in a
series of studies performed in our laboratories. To ensure that the meta-analytic findings were
robust to variations in r, we conducted follow-up analyses using r values ranging from .45 to .
75. Very similar findings emerged from these analyses, suggesting that the values we present
below are reliable estimates of effect size. If anything, they are probably conservative estimates,
because the pre–post correlation between immune measures often is substantially lower than .
60.
The effect size estimates from individual studies were subsequently aggregated using random-
effects models with the software program Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Borenstein &
Rothstein, 1999). The random-effects model views each study in a meta-analysis as a random
observation drawn from a universe of potential investigations. As such, it assumes that the
magnitude of the relationship between stress and the immune system differs across studies as
a result of random variance associated with sampling error and differences across individuals
in the processes of interest. Because of these assumptions, random-effects models not only
permit one to draw inferences about studies that have been done but also to generalize to studies
that might be done in the future (Raudenbush, 1994; Shadish & Haddock, 1994). It also bears
noting that in the population of studies on stress and immunity there is likely to be a fair amount
of nonrandom variance, as researchers who examine ostensibly similar phenomena may still
differ in terms of the samples they recruit, the operational definition of stress they use, and the
laboratory methods they utilize to assess a specific immune process.
Separate random-effects models were computed for each immune outcome included in the
meta-analysis. Prior to computing the random-effects model, r values derived from each study
were z-transformed by the software program, as recommended by Shadish and Haddock
(1994), to stabilize variance. The z values were later back-transformed into r values to facilitate
interpretation of the meta-analytic findings. In the end, each random-effects model yielded an
aggregate weighted effect size r, which can be interpreted the same way as a correlation
coefficient, ranging in value from −1.00 to 1.00. Each r statistic was weighted before
aggregation by multiplying its value by the inverse of its variance; this procedure enabled larger
studies to contribute to effect size estimates to a greater extent than smaller ones. Weighting
effect sizes is important because larger studies provide more accurate estimates of true
population parameters (Shadish & Haddock, 1994). After each aggregate effect size had been
derived, we computed 95% confidence intervals around it, assessed whether it was statistically
significant, and computed a heterogeneity coefficient to determine whether the studies
contributing to it had yielded consistent findings. Following convention, aggregate effect sizes
were considered statistically different from zero when (a) their corresponding z value was
greater than 1.96 and (b) the 95% confidence intervals around them did not include the value
zero (Rosenthal, 1991; Shadish & Haddock, 1994).
To determine whether the studies contributing to each aggregate effect size shared a common
population value, we computed the heterogeneity statistic Q (Shadish & Haddock, 1994). This
statistic is chi-square distributed with k – 1 degrees of freedom, where k represents the number
of independent effect sizes included. When a statistically significant heterogeneity test
emerged, we searched for moderators (characteristics of the participants, stressful experience,
or measurement strategy) that could explain the variability across studies. The first step in this
process involved estimating correlations between participant characteristics (e.g., mean age,
percentage female) and immune effects to examine whether the strength of effects varied
according to demographics. When it was possible to do so, we then stratified the studies
according to characteristics of the stressful experience (e.g., duration, quality) or the
measurement strategy (e.g., interview, checklist), and computed separate random-effects
analyses for each subgroup.

Handling missing data—Occasionally authors of studies failed to report the descriptive or

inferential statistics needed to compute an effect size. In some of these cases, the authors noted
that there was a significant difference between a stressed and control group. When this
occurred, we computed effect sizes assuming that p values were equivalent to .05. This
represents a conservative approach because the actual p values were probably smaller. In other
cases, the authors noted that a stressed and control group did not differ with respect to an
immune outcome, but failed to provide any further statistical information. When this occurred,
we computed effect sizes assuming that there was no difference at all between the groups (r
= .00). Because there is seldom no difference at all between two groups, this also represents a
conservative strategy. Imputation was used in less than 7% of cases.
Handling dependent data—The validity of a meta-analysis rests on the assumption that

each value contributing an aggregate effect size is statistically independent of the others
(Rosenthal, 1991). We devised a number of strategies to avoid violating this independence
assumption. First, in studies that assessed stimulated-lymphocyte proliferation at multiple
mitogen dosages, we computed the average effect size across mitogen dosages, and we used
this value to derive aggregate indices. We used an analogous strategy for studies that assessed
natural killer cell cytotoxicity at multiple effector:target cell ratios. Second, in studies that
utilized designs in which multiple laboratory stressors were compared with a control condition,
the average effect size across stressor conditions was computed and later used to derive
aggregate indices. Because this averaging procedure in most cases yielded an effect size that
was smaller than that of the most potent stressor, we also computed meta-analyses using the
larger of the effect sizes from each study rather than the average. Doing so did not alter any of
the substantive findings we report. Third, in studies in which immune outcomes were assessed
on multiple occasions during a stressful experience, the average effect size across occasions
was used to derive aggregate indices. Note that we did not conduct meta-analyses of recovery
effects, that is, immune values after a stressor had ended. Although such an analysis would
answer interesting questions about the stress-recovery process, there were not enough studies
that included similar immune outcomes assessed at similar time points after stress to permit a
complete analysis. Fourth, because some data were published in more than one outlet, we
contacted authors of multiple publications to determine sample independence or dependence.
Results
Preliminary Findings
The meta-analysis is based on effect sizes derived from 293 independent studies. These studies
were reported in 319 separate articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (see Table 2). A total
of 18,941 individuals participated in these studies. Their mean age was 34.8 years (SD = 15.9).
Although the studies collectively included a broad range of age groups (range = 5–78 years),
most focused heavily on younger adults. More than half of the studies (51.3%) had a mean age
under 30.0 years, and more than four fifths (84.8%) had a mean age under 55.0 years. Slightly
more than two thirds of the studies (68.5%) included women; in the average study almost half
(42.8%) of the participants were female. The vast majority of studies (84.8%) focused on
medically healthy adults.2 Of those that included medical populations, most focused on HIV/
AIDS (k = 18; 38.3%), arthritis (k = 6; 12.8%), cancer (k = 5; 10.6%), or asthma (k = 4; 8.5%).
2The proportion of student samples varied across stressor categories. Nearly all of the studies of brief naturalistic stressors used student
samples (k = 60; 95.2%) because these stressors were predominantly examinations. Student samples were also used in a large minority
of acute time-limited stressor studies (k = 31; 40.5%) but constituted a small minority of samples used in studies of life-event checklists
(k = 8; 14.0%) and studies of event sequences (k = 2; 6.6%), and student samples were not used in studies of chronic stressors or stress
appraisals and intrusions. These are rough estimates, as some studies did not specify whether young adult samples were drawn from a
student population.

With respect to the kinds of stressors examined by studies in the meta-analysis, the most
commonly utilized models were acute laboratory challenges (k = 85; 29.0%) and brief
naturalistic stressors (k = 63; 21.5%). Stressful event sequences (k = 30; 10.2%), chronic
stressors (k = 23; 7.8%), and distant traumatic experiences (k = 9; 3.1%) were explored less
frequently. More than a quarter of the studies in the meta-analysis modeled the stress process
by administering nonspecific life-event checklists (k = 53; 18.1%) and/or global perceived
stress measures (k = 21; 7.1%) to participants. A small minority of studies examined whether
reports of perceived stress or intrusive memories were associated with the extent of immune
dysregulation within populations who had suffered a specific traumatic experience (k = 9;
3.1%).
The studies in the meta-analysis examined 292 distinct immune system outcomes. A minority
of these outcomes were assessed in three or more studies (k = 87; 30.0%), and as such, they
are the focus of the meta-analyses we present in the rest of this article (see Table 1). The most
commonly assessed enumerative outcomes were counts of T-helper lymphocytes (k = 90;
30.7%), T-cytotoxic lymphocytes (k = 81; 27.6%), natural killer cells (k = 67; 22.9%), and total
lymphocytes (k = 52; 17.7%). The most commonly assessed functional outcomes were natural
killer cell cytotoxicity (k = 94; 32.1%) and lymphocyte proliferation stimulated by the mitogens
phytohemagglutinin (PHA; k = 65; 22.2%), concanavalin A (ConA; k = 39; 13.3%), and
pokeweed mitogen (PWM; k = 26; 8.9%).
Interpreting the Meta-Analytic Findings

Table 1 lists the immune parameters analyzed with the arm of the immune system to which
they belong (natural or specific) and, briefly, their function. Where relevant, cell surface
markers used to identify classes of immunocytes in flow cytometry are given. For example,
the cell surface marker CD19 is used to identify B lymphocytes. Recall that different models
of stress and the immune system posit differential effects of stress on subsets of the immune
system—for example, natural versus specific immunity or cellular (Th1) versus humoral (Th2)
immunity. Table 1 acts as a guide for interpreting the pattern of results in light of these models.
In the following sections we describe the meta-analytic results for each stressor category. A
useful rule of thumb for judging effect sizes is to consider values of .10, .30, and .50 as
corresponding to small, medium, and large effects, respectively (J. Cohen & Cohen, 1983);
more generally, the aggregate effect size r can be interpreted in the same fashion as a
correlation, with values ranging from −1.00 to 1.00. Positive values indicate that the presence
of a stressor increases a particular immune parameter relative to some baseline (or control)
condition. We should caution the reader that in some analyses, our statistics are derived from
as few as three independent studies. Although meta-analyses of small numbers of studies do
not pose any major statistical problems, it is important to remember that they have limited
power to detect statistically significant effect sizes. What a meta-analysis can accurately
provide in these instances, however, is an estimate of how much and what direction a given
stressor’s presence influences a specific immune outcome (i.e., an effect size estimate).
Meta-Analytic Results for the Effects of Stressors

Acute time-limited stressors—Acute time-limited stressors included primarily
experimental manipulations of stressful experiences, such as public speaking and mental
arithmetic, that lasted between 5 and 100 min. Reliable effects on the immune system included
increases in immune parameters, especially natural immunity. The most robust effect of this
kind of experience was a marked increase in the number of natural killer cells (r =.43) and
large granular lymphocytes (r =.53) in peripheral blood (see Table 3). This effect is consistent
with the view that acute stressors cause immune cells to redistribute into the compartments in

which they will be most effective (Dhabhar & McEwen, 1997). However, other types of
lymphocytes did not show robust redistribution effects: B cells and T-helper cells showed very
little change (rs = −.07 and .01, respectively), and this change was not statistically significant
across studies. T-cytotoxic lymphocytes did tend to increase reliably in peripheral blood,
though to a lesser degree than their natural immunity counterparts (r =.20); this increase drove
a reliable decline in the T-helper:T-cytotoxic ratio (r = −.23). However, natural killer cells as
well as T-cytotoxic cells can express CD8, the marker most often used to define the latter
population. Because some studies did not use the T cell receptor (CD3) to differentiate between
CD3–CD8+ natural killer cells and CD3+CD8+ T-cytotoxic cells, it is possible that the effect
for “T-cytotoxic cells” is actually being driven by natural killer cells (Benschop, Rodriguez-
Feuerhahn, & Schedlowski, 1996).
The results for cell percentages roughly parallel those for number. However, the percentage
data are harder to interpret because any given parameter is linearly dependent on the other
parameters: For example, the enumerative data suggest that the decrease in percentage T-helper
cells (r = −.24) is probably an artifact of the increases in percentage natural killer cells (r = .
24) and percentage T-cytotoxic cells (r = .09).
Another effect that may be considered a redistribution effect is the significant increase in
secretory IgA in saliva (r = .22). The time frame of these acute stressors is too short for the
synthesis of a significant amount of new antibody; therefore, this increase is probably due to
release of already-synthesized antibody from plasma cells and increased translocation of
antibody across the epithelium and into saliva (Bosch, Ring, de Geus, Veerman, & Amerongen,
2002). This effect therefore represents relocation, albeit of an immune protein rather than an
immune cell.
There were also a number of functional effects. First, natural killer cell cytotoxicity
significantly increased with acute stressors (r = .30), but only when the concomitant increase
in proportion of natural killer cells in the effector mix was not removed statistically. When
examined on a per-cell basis, cytotoxicity did not significantly increase (r = .12). One could,
therefore, consider the increase in cytotoxicity a methodological artifact of the definition of
effector in effector:target ratios. However, to the degree that one is interested in the general
cytotoxic potential of the contents of peripheral blood rather than that of a specific natural killer
cell, the uncorrected value is more illustrative. Second, mitogen-stimulated proliferative
responses decreased significantly. Again, this could be a methodological artifact of the mix of
cells in the assay. However, the proportion of total T and B cells, which are responsible for the
proliferative response to PWM and ConA, did not decrease as reliably or as much as did the
proliferative response (rs = −.05 to −.11 vs. −.10 to −.17), suggesting that acute stressors do
decrease this function of specific immunity. Finally, the production of two cytokines, IL-6 and
IFNγ, was increased significantly following acute stress (rs = .28 and .21, respectively).
The data for acute stressors, therefore, support an upregulation of natural immunity, as reflected
by increased number of natural killer cells in peripheral blood, and potential downregulation
of specific immunity, as reflected by decreased proliferative responses. Other indicators of
upregulated natural immunity include increased neutrophil numbers in peripheral blood (r = .
30), increased production of a proinflammatory cytokine (IL-6), and increased production of
a cytokine that potently stimulates macrophages and natural killer cells as well as T cells
(IFNγ). The only exception to this pattern was the increased secretion of IgA antibody, which
is a product of the specific immune response. An interesting question for future research is
whether this effect is part of a larger nonspecific protein release in the oral cavity in response
to acute stress (cf. Bosch et al., 2002).

It bears noting that a number of the findings presented in Table 3 are accompanied by significant
heterogeneity statistics. To identify moderating variables that might explain some of this
heterogeneity, we examined whether effect sizes varied according to demographic

characteristics of the sample (mean age and percentage female) or features of the acute
challenge (its duration and nature). Neither of the demographic characteristics showed a
consistent relationship with immune outcomes. Although these findings suggest that acute
time-limited stressors elicit a similar pattern of immune response for men and women across
the life span, this conclusion needs to be viewed somewhat cautiously given the narrow range
of ages found in these studies. We also did not find a consistent pattern of relationships between
features of the acute challenge and immune outcomes. Acute stressors elicited similar patterns
of immune change across a wide spectrum of durations ranging from 5 though 100 min and
irrespective of whether they involved social (e.g., public speaking), cognitive (e.g., mental
arithmetic), or experiential (e.g., parachute jumping) forms of stressful experience.
Brief naturalistic stressors—Table 4 presents the meta-analysis of brief naturalistic

stressors for medically healthy adults. The vast majority of these stressors (k = 60; 95.2%)
involved students facing academic examinations. In contrast to the acute time-limited stressors,
examination stress did not markedly affect the number or percentage of cells in peripheral
blood. Instead, the largest effects were on functional parameters, particularly changes in
cytokine production that indicate a shift away from cellular immunity (Th1) and toward
humoral immunity (Th2). Brief stressors reliably changed the profile of cytokine production
via a decrease in a Th1-type cytokine, IFNγ (r = −.30), which stimulates natural and cellular
immune functions, and increases in the Th2-type cytokines IL-6 (r = .26), which stimulates
natural and humoral immune functions, and IL-10 (r = .41), which inhibits Th1 cytokine
production. Note that IFNγ and IL-6 share the property of stimulating natural immunity but
differentially stimulate cytotoxic versus inflammatory effector mechanisms. Their dissociation
after brief naturalistic stress indicates differential effects between Th1 and Th2 responses rather
than natural and specific responses.
The functional assay data are consistent with this suggestion of suppression of cellular
immunity via decreased Th1 cytokine production: The T cell proliferative response
significantly decreased with brief stressors (r = −.19 to −.32), as did natural killer cell
cytotoxicity (r = −.11). Increased antibody production to latent virus, particularly Epstein-Barr
virus (r = .20), is also consistent with suppression of cellular immunity, enhancement of
humoral immunity, or both.
There was also evidence that age contributed to vulnerability to stress-related immune change
during brief naturalistic stressors, even within a limited range of relatively young ages. When
we examined whether effect sizes varied according to demographic characteristics of the

sample, sex ratio did not show a consistent pattern of relations with immune processes.
However, the mean age of the sample was strongly related to study effect size. To the extent
that a study enrolled participants of older ages, it was likely to observe more pronounced
decreases in natural killer cell cytotoxicity (r = −.58, p = .04; k = 14), T lymphocyte proliferation
to the mitogens PHA (r = −.58, p = .04; k = 13) and ConA (r = −.31, p = .38; k = 9), and
production of the cytokine IFNγ (r = −.63, p = .09; k = 8) in response to brief naturalistic stress.
The strength of these findings is particularly surprising given the narrow range of ages found
in studies of brief natural stress; the mean participant age in this literature ranged from 15.7 to
35.0 years.
We also calculated effect sizes for three studies examining the effects of examination stress on
individuals with asthma (see Table 5). These three studies, all emanating from a team of
investigators at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, found that stress reliably increased

superoxide release (r = .20 to .37) and decreased natural killer cell cytotoxicity (r = − .33).
Because natural killer cells are stimulated by Th1 cytokines, this change is consistent with a
Th1-to-Th2 shift. However, stress also reliably increased T cell proliferation to PHA (r = .32),
which is not consistent with such a shift. The generally larger effect sizes are consistent with
the idea that individuals with immunologically mediated disease are more susceptible to stress-
related immune dysregulation, but the reversed sign for T cell proliferation also indicates that
that pattern of dysregulation may also be more disorganized. That is, the organized pattern of
suppression of Th1 but not Th2 immune responses in healthy individuals undergoing brief
stressors may reflect regulation in the healthy immune system. In contrast, the lack of regulation
in a diseased immune system may lead to more chaotic changes during stressors.
Stressful event sequences—The meta-analysis of stressful event sequences is presented

in Table 6. With the exception of significant increases in the number of circulating natural
killer cells and the number of antibodies to the latent Epstein-Barr virus, the findings indicate
that stressful event sequences are not associated with reliable immune changes. For many
immune outcomes, however, significant heterogeneity statistics are evident. Studies of healthy
adults generally fell into two categories that yielded disparate patterns of immune findings.
The largest group of studies focused on the death of a spouse as a stressor and, as such, used
samples consisting primarily of older women. Collectively, these studies found that losing a
spouse was associated with a reliable decline in natural killer cell cytotoxicity (r = − .23, p = .
01; k = 6) but not with alterations in stimulated-lymphocyte proliferation by the mitogens ConA
(r = − .04, p = .45; k = 4), PHA (r = −.01, p = .93; k = 7), or PWM (r = −.08, p = .76; k = 3) or
with changes in the number of T-helper lymphocytes (r = .07, p = .52; k = 6) or T-cytotoxic
lymphocytes (r = −.13, p = .45; k = 5) in peripheral blood. The next largest group of studies in
this area examined immune responses to disasters, which may have different neuroendocrine
consequences than loss; whereas loss is generally associated with increases in cortisol, trauma
may be associated with decreases in cortisol (Yehuda, 2001; Yehuda, McFarlane, & Shalev,
1998). Natural disaster samples tended to focus on middle-aged adults of both sexes who were
direct victims of the disaster, rescue workers at the scene, or personnel at nearby medical
centers. There were medium-size effects suggesting increases in natural killer cell cytotoxicity
(r = .25, p = .53; k = 4) and stimulated-lymphocyte proliferation by the mitogen PHA (r = .26,
p = .33; k = 2), as well as decreases in the number of T-helper lymphocytes (r = −.20, p = .43;
k = 2) and T-cytotoxic lymphocytes (r = −.23, p = .55; k = 2) in the circulation. However, none
of them was statistically significant because of the small number of studies involved, and
therefore these effects should be considered suggestive but not reliable.
An additional group of studies in this area examined immune responses to a positive initial
biopsy for breast cancer in primarily middle-aged female participants before and after the
procedure. The three studies of this nature did not yield a consistent pattern of relations with
any of the immune outcomes.
In summary, stressful event sequences did not elicit a robust pattern of immune changes when
considered as a whole. When these sequences are broken down into categories reflecting the
stressor’s nature, the meta-analysis yields evidence of declines in natural immune response
following the loss of a spouse, nonsignificant increases in natural and specific immune
responses following exposure to natural disaster, and no immune alterations with breast biopsy.
Unfortunately, we cannot determine whether these disparate patterns of immune response are
attributable to features of the stressors, demographic or medical characteristics of the
participants, or some interaction between these factors.
Chronic stressors—Chronic stressors included dementia caregiving, living with a

handicap, and unemployment. Like other nonacute stressors, they did not have any systematic

relationship with enumerative measures of the immune system. They did, however, have
negative effects on almost all functional measures of the immune system (see Table 7). Both
natural and specific immunity were negatively affected, as were Th1 (e.g., T cell proliferative
responses) and Th2 (e.g., antibody to influenza vaccine) parameters. The only nonsignificant
change was for antibody to latent virus; this effect size was substantial (r = .44), but there was
also substantial heterogeneity. Further analyses showed that demographics did not moderate
this effect: Immune responses to chronic stressors were equally strong across the age spectrum
as well as across sex.
Distant stressors—Distant stressors were traumatic events such as combat exposure or

abuse occurring years prior to immune assessment. The meta-analytic results for distant
stressors appear in Table 8. The only immune outcome that has been examined regularly in
this literature is natural killer cell cytotoxicity, and it is not reliably altered in persons who
report a distant traumatic experience.
Meta-Analytic Results for the Effects of Checklists and Ratings

Nonspecific life events—Most of the studies in this area examined whether immune
responses varied as a function of the number of life events a person endorsed on a standard
checklist, a person’s rating of the impact of those events, or both. As Table 9 illustrates, this
methodology yielded little in the way of significant outcomes in healthy participants. To
determine whether vulnerability to life events might vary across the life span, we divided
studies into two categories on the basis of a natural break in the age distribution. These analyses
provided evidence that older adults are especially vulnerable to life-event–induced immune
change. In studies that used samples of adults who had a mean age above 55, life events were
associated with reliable declines in lymphocyte-proliferative responses to PHA (r = −.40, p = .
05; k = 2) and natural killer cell cytotoxicity (r = −.59, p = .001; k = 2). These effects were
much weaker in studies with a mean age below 55: Life events were not associated with
proliferative responses to PHA (r = −.22, p = .24; k = 2), and showed a reliable but modest
relationship with natural killer cell cytotoxicity (r = −.10, p = .03; k = 8). The differences in
effect size between older and younger adults were statistically significant for natural killer cell
cytotoxicity ( p < .001) but not PHA-induced proliferation ( p <.15). None of the other
moderators we examined—sex ratio, kind of life event assessed (daily hassle vs. major event),
or the method used to do so (checklist vs. interview)—was related to immune outcomes.
Table 10 presents the relationship between life events and immune parameters in participants
with HIV/AIDS. The presence of life events was associated with a significant reduction in the
number of natural killer cells and a marginal reduction in the number of T-cytotoxic
lymphocytes. It is unrelated to the number of T-helper lymphocytes, the percentage of T-

cytotoxic lymphocytes, and the T-helper:T-cytotoxic ratio, all of which are recognized
indicators of disease progression for patients with HIV/AIDS.
We have already proposed that immunological disease diminishes the resilience and self-
regulation of the immune system, making it more vulnerable to stress-related disruption, and
this may be the case in HIV-infected versus healthy populations. However, studies of HIV-
infected populations also utilized more refined measures of life events (interviews that factor
in biographical context) than did studies of healthy populations (typically, checklist measures).
Unfortunately, we cannot differentiate between these explanations on the basis of the available
data.
Global stress appraisals and intrusive thoughts—The meta-analysis of stress

appraisals and intrusive thoughts is displayed in Table 11. These studies generally enrolled

large populations of adults who were not experiencing any specific form of stress and examined
whether their immune responses varied according to stress appraisals and/or intrusive thoughts.
This methodology was unsuccessful at documenting immune changes related to stress. Because
of the small number of studies in this category, moderator analyses could not be performed.
The meta-analysis results shown in Table 12 address a similar question with regard to persons
who are in the midst of a specific event sequence or a chronic stressor. To the extent that they
appraise their lives as stressful or report the occurrence of intrusive thoughts, these individuals
exhibit a significant reduction in natural killer cell cytotoxicity. Although this effect does not
extend to the number of T-helper and T-cytotoxic lymphocytes in the circulation, it suggests
that a person’s subjective representation of a stressor may be a determinant of its impact on
the immune response.
Evidence Regarding Type I Error and Publication Bias

The large number of effect sizes generated by the meta-analysis raises the possibility of Type
I error. One strategy for evaluating this concern involves dividing the number of significant
findings in a meta-analysis by the total number of analyses conducted. When we performed
this calculation, a value of 25.6% emerged, suggesting that more than one fourth of the analyses
yielded reliable findings. This exceeds the 5% value at which investigators typically become
concerned about Type I error rates and gives us confidence that the meta-analytic findings
presented here are robust.
A second concern arises from the publication bias toward positive findings, which could skew
meta-analytic results toward larger effect sizes. Fortunately, recent advances in meta-analysis
enable one to evaluate the extent of this publication bias by using graphical techniques. A
funnel plot can be drawn in which effect sizes are plotted against sample sizes for any group
of studies. Because most studies in any given area have small sample sizes and therefore tend
to yield more variable findings, the plot should end up looking like a funnel, with a narrow top
and a wide bottom. If there is a bias against negative findings in an area, the plot is shifted
toward positive values or a chunk of it will be missing entirely.
We drew funnel plots for all of the immune outcomes in the meta-analysis for which there were
a sufficient number of observations. Although not all of them yielded perfect funnels, there
was no systematic evidence of publication bias. Space limitations prevent us from including
all plots; however, Figure 1 displays three plots that are prototypical of those we drew. As is
evident from the data in the figure, psychoneuroimmunology researchers seem to be reporting
positive and negative findings—and not hiding unfavorable outcomes when they do emerge.
Thus, we do not have any major concerns about publication bias leading this meta-analysis to
dramatically overestimate effect sizes.
Discussion
The immune system, once thought to be autonomous, is now known to respond to signals from
many other systems in the body, particularly the nervous system and the endocrine system. As
a consequence, environmental events to which the nervous system and endocrine system
respond can also elicit responses from the immune system. The results of meta-analysis of the
hundreds of research reports generated by this hypothesis indicate that stressful events reliably
associate with changes in the immune system and that characteristics of those events are
important in determining the kind of change that occurs.

Models of Stress and the Immune System

Selye’s (1975) seminal findings suggested that stress globally suppressed the immune system
and provided the first model for how stress and immunity are related. This model has recently
been challenged by views that relations between stress and the immune system should be
adaptive, at least within the context of fight-or-flight stressors, and an even newer focus on the
balance between cellular and humoral immunity. The present meta-analytic results support
three of these models. Depending on the time frame, stressors triggered adaptive upregulation
of natural immunity and suppression of specific immunity (acute time-limited), cytokine shift
(brief naturalistic), or global immunosuppression (chronic).
When stressors were acute and time-limited—that is, they generally followed the temporal
parameters of fight-or-flight stressors—there was evidence for adaptive redistribution of cells
and preparation of the natural immune system for possible infection, injury, or both. In
evolution, stressor-related changes in the immune system that prepared the organisms for
infections resulting from bites, puncture wounds, scrapes, or other challenges to the integrity
of the skin and blood could be selected for. This process would be most adaptive when it was
also efficient and did not divert excess energy from fight-or-flight behavior. Indeed, changes
in the immune system following acute stress conformed to this pattern of efficiency and energy
conservation. Acute stress upregu-lated parameters of natural immunity, the branch of the
immune system in which most changes occurred, which requires only minimal time and energy
investment to act against invaders and is also subject to the fewest inhibitory constraints on
acting quickly (Dopp et al., 2000; Sapolsky, 1998). In contrast, energy may actually be directed
away from the specific immune response, as indexed by the decrease in the proliferative
response. The specific immune response in general and proliferation in particular demand time
and energy; therefore, this decrease might indicate a redirection away from this function.
Similar redirection occurs during fight-or-flight stressors with regard to other nonessential,
future-oriented processes such as digestion and reproduction. As stressors became more
chronic, the potential adaptiveness of the immune changes decreased. The effect of brief
stressors such as examinations was to change the potency of different arms of specific immunity
—specifically, to switch away from cellular (Th1) immunity and toward humoral (Th2)
immunity.
The stressful event sequences tended to fall into two substantive groups: bereavement and
trauma. Bereavement was associated with decreased natural killer cell cytotoxicity. Trauma
was associated with nonsignificantly increased cytotoxicity and increased proliferation but
decreased numbers of T cells in peripheral blood. The different results for loss and trauma
mirror neuroendocrine effects of these two types of adverse events. Loss—maternal separation
in nonhuman animals and bereavement in humans—is commonly associated with increased
cortisol production (Irwin, Daniels, Risch, Bloom, & Weiner, 1988; Laudenslager, 1988;
McCleery, Bhagwagar, Smith, Goodwin, & Cowen, 2000). In contrast, trauma and
posttraumatic stress disorder are commonly associated with decreased cortisol production
(see Yehuda, 2001; Yehuda et al., 1998, for reviews). To the degree that cortisol suppresses
immune function such as natural killer cell cytotoxicity, these results have the potential to
explain the different effects of loss and trauma event sequences.
The most chronic stressors were associated with the most global immunosuppression, as they
were associated with reliable decreases in almost all functional immune measures examined.
Increasing stressor duration, therefore, resulted in a shift from potentially adaptive changes to
potentially detrimental changes, initially in cellular immunity and then in immune function
more broadly. It is important to recognize that although the effects of chronic stressors may be
due to their duration, the most chronic stressors were associated with changes in identity or
social roles (e.g., acquiring the role of caregiver or refugee or losing the role of employee).

These chronic stressors may also be more persistent, that is, constantly rather than
intermittently present. Finally, chronic stressors may be less controllable and afford less hope
for control in the future. These qualities could contribute to the severity of the stressor in terms
of both its psychological and physiological impact.
Increasing stressor chronicity also impacted the type of parameter in which changes were seen.
Compared with the natural immune system, the specific immune system is time and energy
intensive and as such is expected to be invoked only when circumstances (either a stressor or
an infection; cf. Maier & Watkins, 1998) persist for a longer period of time. Affected immune
domains—natural versus specific—were consistent with the duration of the stressors—acute
versus chronic. Furthermore, changing immune responses via redistribution of cells can happen
much faster than changes via the function of cells. The time frames of the stressor and the
immune domain were also consistent; acute stress affected primarily enumerative measures,
whereas stressors of longer duration affected primarily functional measures.
The results of these analyses suggest that the dichotomization of the immune system into
natural and specific categories and, within specific immunity, into cellular and humoral
measures, is a useful starting point with regard to understanding the effects of stressors.
Categorizing an immune response is a difficult process, as each immune response is highly
redundant and includes natural, specific, cellular, and humoral immune responses acting
together. Given this redundancy, the differential results within these theoretical divisions were
remarkably, albeit not totally, consistent. As further immunological research defines these
divisions more subtly, the results with regard to stressors may become even clearer. However,
the present results suggest that the categories used here are meaningful.
The results of this meta-analysis reflect the theoretical and empirical progress of this literature
over the past 4 decades. Increased differentiation in the quality of stressors and the
immunological parameters investigated have allowed complex models to be tested. In contrast,
previous meta-analyses were bound by a small number of more homogenous studies. Herbert
and Cohen (1993) reported on 36 studies published between 1977 and 1991, finding broadly
immunosuppressive effects of stress. Zorrilla et al. (2001) reported on 82 studies published
between 1980 and 1996, finding potentially adaptive effects of acute stressors in addition to
evidence for immunosuppression with longer stressors. It is important to note that meta-
analytic findings are bound by the models tested in the literature. As more complex models are
tested, more complex relationships emerge in meta-analysis. We next consider some such areas
of complexity that should be considered in future psychoneuroimmunology research.
Individual Differences and Immune Change Under Stress

The meta-analytic results indicate that organismic variables such as age and disease status
moderate vulnerability to stress-related decreases in functional immune measures. Both aging
and HIV are associated with immune senescence and loss of responsiveness (Effros et al.,
1994; Effros & Pawelec, 1997), and both are also associated with disruption of neuroendocrine
inputs to the immune system (Kumar et al., 2002; Madden, Thyagarajan, & Felten, 1998). The
loss of self-regulation in disease and aging likely makes affected people more susceptible to
negative immunological effects of stress. Finally, the meta-analysis did not reveal effects of
sex on immune responses to stressors. However, these comparisons simply correlated the sex
ratio of the studies with effect sizes. Grouping data by sex would afford a more powerful
comparison, but few studies organized their data that way. Gender may moderate the effects
of stress on immunity by virtue of the effects of sex hormones on immunity; generally, men
are considered to be more biologically vulnerable (Maes, 1999), and they may be more
psychosocially vulnerable (e.g.,Scanlan, Vitaliano, Ochs, Savage, & Borson, 1998).

It seems likely to us that individual differences in subjective experience also make a substantive
contribution to explaining this phenomenon. Studies have convincingly demonstrated that
people’s cardiovascular and neuroendocrine responses to stressful experience are dependent

on their appraisals of the situation and the presence of intrusive thoughts about it (Baum et al.,
1993; Frankenhauser, 1975; Tomaka et al., 1997). Although the same logic should apply to
people’s immune responses to stressful experience, few of the studies in this area have included
measures of subjective experience, and those reports were limited by methodological issues
such as aggregation across heterogeneous stressors. As a consequence, measures of subjective
experience were not significantly associated with immune parameters in healthy research
participants, with the exception of a modest (r = −.10) relationship between intrusive thoughts
and natural killer cell cytotoxicity. Psychological variables such as personality and emotion
can give rise to individual differences in psychological and concomitant immunological
responses to stress. Optimism and coping, for example, moderated immunological responses
to stressors in several studies (e.g., Barger et al., 2000; Bosch et al., 2001; Cruess et al.,
2000; Segerstrom, 2001; Stowell, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 2001).
Mechanisms of Stress Effects on the Immune System

Virtually nothing is known about the psychological pathways linking stressors with the immune
system. Many theorists have argued that affect is a final common pathway for stressors (e.g.,
S. Cohen, Kessler, & Underwood, 1995; Miller & Cohen, 2001), yet studies have enjoyed
limited success in attempting to explain people’s immune responses to life experiences on the
basis of their emotional states alone (Bower et al., 1998; Cole, Kemeny, Taylor, Visscher, &
Fahey, 1996; Miller, Dopp, Myers, Stevens, & Fahey, 1999; Segerstrom, Taylor, Kemeny, &
Fahey, 1998). Furthermore, many studies have focused on the immune effects of emotional
valence (e.g., unhappy vs. happy; Futterman, Kemeny, Shapiro, & Fahey, 1994), but the
immune system may be even more closely linked to emotional arousal (e.g., stimulated vs.
still), especially during acute stressors (S. Cohen et al., 2000). Finally, it is possible that emotion
will prove to be relatively unimportant and that other mental processes such as motivational
states or cognitive appraisals will prove to be the critical psychological mechanisms linking
stress and the immune system (cf. Maier, Waldstein, & Synowski, 2003).
In terms of biological mechanisms, the field is further along, but much remains to be learned.
A series of studies in the mid-1990s was able to show via beta-adrenergic blockade that
activation of the sympathetic nervous system was responsible for the immune system effects
of acute stressors (Bachen et al., 1995; Benschop, Nieuwenhuis, et al., 1994). Apart from these
findings, however, little is known about biological mechanisms, especially with regard to more
enduring stressors that occur in the real world. Studies that have attempted to identify hormonal
pathways linking stressors and the immune system have enjoyed limited success, perhaps
because they have utilized snapshot assessments of hormones circulating in blood. Future
studies can maximize their chances of identifying relevant mediators by utilizing more
integrated measures of hormonal output, such as 24-hr urine collections or diurnal profiles
generated through saliva collections spaced throughout the day (Baum & Grunberg, 1995;
Stone et al., 2001).
Future studies could also benefit from a greater emphasis on behavior as a potential mechanism.
This strategy has proven useful in studies of clinically depressed patients, in which decreased
physical activity and psychomotor retardation (Cover & Irwin, 1994; Miller, Cohen, & Herbert,
1999), increased body mass (Miller, Stetler, Carney, Freedland, & Banks, 2002), disturbed
sleep (Cover & Irwin, 1994; Irwin, Smith, & Gillin, 1992), and cigarette smoking (Jung &
Irwin, 1999) have been shown to explain some of the immune dysregulation evident in this
population. There is already preliminary evidence, for instance, that sleep loss might be

responsible for some of the immune system changes that accompany stressors (Hall et al.,
1998; Ironson et al., 1997).
Stress, the Immune System, and Disease

The most pressing question that future research needs to address is the extent to which stressor-
induced changes in the immune system have meaningful implications for disease susceptibility
in otherwise healthy humans. In the 30 years since work in the field of
psychoneuroimmunology began, studies have convincingly established that stressful
experiences alter features of the immune response as well as confer vulnerability to adverse
medical outcomes that are either mediated by or resisted by the immune system. However,
with the exception of recent work on upper respiratory infection (S. Cohen, Doyle, & Skoner,
1999), studies have not yet tied these disparate strands of work together nor determined whether
immune system changes are the mechanism through which stressors increase susceptibility to
disease onset. In contrast, studies of vulnerable populations such as people with HIV have
shown changes in immunity to predict disease progression (Bower et al., 1998).
To test an effect of this nature, researchers need to build clinical outcome assessments into
study designs where appropriate. For example, chronic stressors reliably diminish the immune
system’s capacity to produce antibodies following routine influenza vaccinations (see Table
7). Yet as far as we are aware, none of these studies has tracked illness to explore whether
stress-related disparities in vaccine response might be sufficient to heighten susceptibility to

clinical infection with influenza. Cytokine expression represents a relatively new and
promising example of an avenue for research linking stress, immune change, and disease. For
example, chronic stress may elicit prolonged secretion of cortisol, to which white blood cells
mount a counterregulatory response by downregulating their cortisol receptors. This
downregulation, in turn, reduces the cells’ capacity to respond to anti-inflammatory signals
and allows cytokine-mediated inflammatory processes to flourish (Miller, Cohen, & Ritchey,
2002). Stress therefore might contribute to the course of diseases involving excessive
nonspecific inflammation (e.g., multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, coronary heart disease)
and thereby increase risk for excess morbidity and mortality (Ershler & Keller, 2000;
Papanicoloaou et al., 1998; Rozanski, Blumenthal, & Kaplan, 1999). Another example of the
importance of cytokines to clinical pathology is in asthma and allergy, in which emerging
evidence implicates excess Th2 cytokine secretion in the exacerbation of these diseases (Busse
& Lemanske, 2001; Luster, 1998).
Conclusion
Sapolsky (1998) wrote,
Stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate
a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies,
but we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships, and
promotions. (p. 7)
The results of this meta-analysis support this assertion in one sense: Stressors with the temporal
parameters of the fight-or-flight situations faced by humans’ evolutionary ancestors elicited
potentially beneficial changes in the immune system. The more a stres-sor deviated from those
parameters by becoming more chronic, however, the more components of the immune system
were affected in a potentially detrimental way.
Further research is needed to support two other ideas elicited by this quote: the idea that
subjective experience such as worry is more likely to result in stress-related immune change
than objective experience and the idea that stress-related immune change results in stress-

related disease. Though the results of the meta-analysis were not encouraging on the first point,
many of these studies suffered from methodological limitations. We hope that these results
will inform investigations that go beyond the relationship between a stressful event and an
immune parameter to investigate the psychological phenomena that mediate that relationship.
Finally, these results can also inform investigations into stress, immunity, and disease process.
Whether the disease is characterized by natural or specific immunity, its cytokine profile, and
its regulation by anti-inflammatory agents such as cortisol, may determine the disparate effects
of different kinds of stressors.
Acknowledgements
Preparation of this work was supported by American Heart Association Grant 0160367Z, the National Alliance for
Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, National Institute of Mental Health Grant 61531, and Michael Smith
Foundation for Health Research Grant CI-SCH-58. We thank Edith Chen for her helpful comments on an earlier
version of the article and Jennifer Snedeker for assistance with manuscript preparation.
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Figure 1.
Funnel plots depicting relationship between effect size and sample size. PHA =
phytohemagglutinin.

Table 1
Immune Parameters Reported and Critical Characteristics
Parameter Arm of immune system Function Cell surface marker
Cell
Leukocytes Natural All white cells
Granulocytes Natural Inflammation
Neutrophils Natural Inflammation, phagocytosis
Eosinophils Natural Inflammation
Monocytes/macrophages Natural Inflammation, phagocytosis
Lymphocytes Specific All lymphocytes CD2
T lymphocytes Specific Cellular immunity CD3, CD45RA (naive)
T-helper lymphocytes Specific Cellular (Th1) or humoral (Th2) CD4
immunity
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes Specific Cellular (Th1) immunity CD8
B lymphocytes Specific Humoral (Th2) immunity CD19, CD20
Activated B lymphocytes Specific Humoral (Th2) immunity CD23, CD30
Natural killer cells Natural Cellular (Th1) immunity CD16, CD56, CD57
Immunoglobulin
IgA, IgG, IgM Specific Humoral (Th2) immunity
Anti-EBV IgG Specific Index of EBV replication/
activation
Anti-HSV IgG Specific Index of HSV replication/
activation
Anti- Specific Humoral (Th2) immunity
influenza IgG postimmunization
Cytokine
Interleukin-1β Natural Inflammation, T cell activation
Interleukin-2
Specific T cell activation (Th1)

Interleukin-4 Specific B cell activation, antibody
production (Th2)
Interleukin-6 Natural Inflammation
Interleukin-10 Specific Inhibits T cell activation (Th2)
Interferon-γ Natural and specific Macrophage, natural killer cell,
and T cell activation (Th1)
Tumor necrosis factor-α Natural Inflammation
Complement Natural Increases effectiveness of natural C3
immunity
Functional assay
Neutrophil superoxide release Natural Inflammation
Natural killer cell cytotoxicity Natural Cellular (Th1) immunity
Proliferation to ConA Specific Cellular (Th1) immunity (T cell
proliferation)
Proliferation to PHA Specific Cellular (Th1) immunity (T cell
proliferation)
Proliferation to PWM Specific Cellular (Th1) and humoral (Th2)
immunity (T and B cell
proliferation)
Note. Th1 = cells that direct a response to intracellular pathogens; Th2 = cells that direct a response to extracellular pathogens; IgA = immunoglobulin A;
IgG = immunoglobulin G; IgM = immunoglobulin M; EBV = Epstein-Barr virus; HSV = herpes simplex virus; ConA = concanavalin A; PHA =
phytohemagglutinin; PWM = pokeweed mitogen.

NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript
Table 2
Studies Used in the Meta-Analysis by Type of Stressor
Acute time-limited Brief naturalistic Event sequence Chronic Distant Life event Stress appraisal
Ackerman et al., Baker et al., 1984, 1985 Antoni et al., 1990 Bauer et al., 2000 Boscarino & Chang, Abdeljaber et al., Andersen et al., 1998
1996, 1998 1999 1994
Aloe et al., 1994 Bisselli et al., 1993 Aragona et al., 1996 Dekaris et al., 1993 Inoue-Sakurai et al., Benschop, Jabaaij, et de Gucht et al., 1999
2000 al., 1998
Arber et al., 1992 Borella et al., 1999 Arnetz et al., 1991 Dimsdale et al., Laudenslager et al., Biondo et al., 1994 Halim et al., 2000
1994 1998
Bachen et al., 1992, Bosch et al., 1996 Bartrop et al., 1977 Drummond & Mosnaim et al., 1993 Birmaher et al., 1994 Hall et al., 1998
Segerstrom and Miller
1995 Hewson-Bower
1997
Barger et al., 2000 Boyce et al., 1993, 1995 Beem et al., 1999 Esterling et al., Spivak et al., 1997 Byrnes et al., 1998 Ironson et al., 1997
1994, 1996
Beck et al., 2000 Davidson et al., 1999 Cruess et al., 2000 Gennaro, Fehder, Watson et al., 1983 F. Cohen et al., 1999 Kawakami et al., 1997
Cnaan, et al., 1997
Benschop, Brosschot, Deinzer & Schüller, 1998 Delahanty et al., 1997 Gennaro, Fehder, Wilson et al., 1999 Evans et al., 1995 Kawamura et al., 2001
et al., 1994 Nuamah, et al., 1997
Benschop et al., 1995 Deinzer et al., 2000 Dworsky et al., 1989 Glaser & Kiecolt- Gomez et al., 1994 Kusaka et al., 1992
Glaser, 1997
Benschop, Jacobs, et Dobbin et al., 1991 Goodkin et al., 1996 Glaser et al., 1998, González-Quijano et Lerman et al., 1999
al., 1996 2000, 2001 al., 1998
Benschop, Fittschen et al., 1990 Ironson et al., 1990, 1997 Irwin et al., 1991, Goodkin, Blaney, et Maes et al., 1999
Nieuwenhuis, et al., 1997 al., 1992
1994
Bongartz et al., 1987 Gilbert et al., 1996 Irwin et al., 1986, 1988 Kiecolt-Glaser et al., Goodkin, Fuchs, et Marsland et al., 2001
1991, 1995, 1996 al., 1992
Bosch et al., 2001 Glaser, Kiecolt-Glaser, Irwin, Daniels, Smith, et Kiecolt-Glaser, Graham et al., 1988 McClelland et al., 1982
Speicher, & Holliday, al., 1987 Glaser, et al., 1987
1985
Breznitz et al., 1998 Glaser, Kiecolt-Glaser, Irwin, Daniels, & Lauc et al., 1998 Howland et al., 2000 McDade, 2001
Stout, et al., 1985 Weiner, 1987
Bristow et al., 1997 Glaser et al., 1986, 1987, Kiecolt-Glaser, Fisher, et Lutgendorf et al., Irwin, Daniels, Nakamura et al., 1999
1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, al., 1987 1999 Bloom, et al., 1987
1996, 1999
Brosschot et al., 1991, Gruzelier et al., 2001 Kiecolt-Glaser et al., McKinnon et al., Irwin et al., 1990 Nakata et al., 2000
1992, 1994 1988 1989
Burleson et al., 1998 Guidi et al., 1999 Lane et al., 1983 Mills et al., 1997, Jabaaij et al., 1993, Scanlan et al., 1998
1999 1996
Cacioppo et al., 1995, Halvorsen & Vassend, Lutgendorf et al., 1997, Nakano et al., 1998 Kemeny et al., 1989 Schaubroeck et al., 2001

1998 1987 2001
Caggiula et al., 1995 Jemmott & Magloire, 1988 McClelland et al., 1991 Pariante et al., 1997 Kessler et al., 1991 Söderfeldt et al., 2000
Caudell & Gallucci, Jemmott et al., 1983 Nagabhushan et al., 2001 Sabioncello et al., Kubitz et al., 1986 Song et al., 1999
1995 2000
Chi et al., 1993 Kamei et al., 1997, 1998 Pettingale et al., 1994 Scanlan et al., 1998 Leserman et al., 1997 Theorell et al., 1990
S. Cohen et al., 2000 Kang et al., 1996, 1997, Solomon et al., 1997 Schlesinger & Levy et al., 1989 Tjemsland et al., 1997
1998 Yodfat, 1988
Cruse et al., 1993 Kiecolt-Glaser et al., Spratt & Denney, 1991 Stowell et al., 2001 Liang et al., 1997 Værnes et al., 1991
1986, 1993, 1994, 1997,
2001
Delahanty et al., Kugler et al., 1996 Udelman, 1982 Vedhara et al., 1999 B. S. Linn et al., 1988 Vitaliano et al., 1998
1996, 1998, 2000
Dopp et al., 2000 Lacey et al., 2000 Weiss et al., 1996 Vitaliano et al., 1998 M. W. Linn et al., Wilcox et al., 2000
1983, 1984
Dugué et al., 1993 Lowe et al., 2000 Zisook et al., 1994 Martin & Dobbin
1988
Page 43 of 55
Endresen et al., 1991 Maes et al., 1997, 1998, McClelland et al.,

1999 1980
Geenen et al., 1998 Marchesi et al., 1989 McDade et al., 2000
Gerits & Marshall et al., 1998 McIntosh et al., 1993
DeBrabander, 1999
Gerritsen et al., 1996 Marucha et al., 1998 McNaughton et al.,
1990
Goebel & Mills, 2000 McClelland et al., 1985 Miletic et al., 1996
Goebel et al., 2000 Ockenfels et al., 1994 H. Moss et al., 1998
Herbert et al., 1994 Paik et al., 2000 R. B. Moss et al., 1989
Jacobs et al., 2001 Segerstrom, 2001 Mulder et al., 1995

Jern et al., 1989 Segerstrom et al., 1998 Patterson et al., 1995
Johnson et al., 1996 Song et al., 1999 Perry et al., 1992
Kamei et al., 1998 Uchakin et al., 2001 Petrey et al., 1991
Kang & Fox, 2000 Van Rood et al., 1995 Rabkin et al., 1991
Landmann et al., 1984 Vassend & Halvorsen, Ravindran et al., 1996
1987
Larson et al., 2001 Vedhara & Nott, 1996 Schlesinger &
Yodfat, 1991
Manuck et al., 1991 Wadee et al., 2001 Shea et al., 1991
Marsland et al., 1995, Whitehouse et al., 1996 Thomason et al., 1996
1997, 2001
Matthews et al., 1995 Wolf et al., 1994 Thornton et al., 2000
McDonald & Yagi, Workman & La Via, 1987 Vialettes et al., 1989
1960
Miller, Dopp, et al., Zautra et al., 1989
1999
Mills & Dimsdale,
1996
Mills, Berry, et al.,
1995
Mills et al., 1996, 1998
Mills, Haeri, &
Dimsdale, 1995
Mills, Ziegler, et al.,
1995
Moyna et al., 1999
Naliboff et al., 1991
Naliboff, Solomon,
Gilmore, Benton, et

al., 1995
Naliboff, Solomon,
Gilmore, Fahey, et al.,
1995
Neumann & Chi, 1999
Neumann et al., 1998,
2000
Ohira et al., 1999
Olff et al., 1995
Pawlak et al., 1999,
2000
Pehlivanođlu et al.,
2001
Peters et al., 1999
Pike et al., 1997
Redwine et al., 2001
Page 44 of 55
Ring et al., 2000

Rohleder et al., 2001
Sauer et al., 1995
Schedlowski, Jacobs,
Alker, et al., 1993
Schedlowski, Jacobs,
& Stratmann, et al.,
1993
Schmid-Ott et al.,
1998, 2001
Sgoutas-Emch et al.,
1994
Sieber et al., 1992
Spangler, 1997
Stone et al., 1993
Tsopanakis &
Tsopanakis, 1998
Uchino et al., 1995
Van der Pompe et al.,
1997, 1998
Van der Voort et al.,
2000
Wang et al., 1998
Weisse et al., 1990
Willemsen et al., 1998
Winzer et al., 1999
Zakowski, 1995
Zakowski et al., 1992,
1994
Zeier et al., 1996

Page 45 of 55
Table 3
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Acute Time-Limited Stress in Healthy Participants
Immune marker k N r SEr 95% CI p Q
Leukocyte subset count

Leukocytes 25 1,129 .17 .04 .10, .25 .001 34.61
Granulocytes 12 397 .08 .06 minus;.04, . .18 31.77
19
Neutrophils 3 86 .30 .12 .08, .50 .009 2.13
Eosinophils 3 81 −.10 .16 −.39, .21 .53 2.99
Monocytes 15 590 .04 .05 −.05, .13 .43 15.43
Lymphocytes 24 828 .18 .05 .09, .26 .001 31.77
T lymphocytes 33 1,452 .07 .03 .01, .12 .01 25.48
T-helper lymphocytes 42 1,678 .01 .03 −.05, .05 .86 23.72
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes 42 1,678 .20 .03 .15, .25 .001 34.05
T-helper:T-cytotoxic ratio 19 920 −.23 .10 −.40, −.04 .02 17.98
Naive T lymphocytes 3 241 −.09 .11 −.29, .12 .41 2.46
B lymphocytes 18 739 −.07 .04 −.14, .01 .08 16.23
Activated B lymphocytes 4 60 −.15 .14 −.40, .14 .31 0.48
Natural killer cells 41 1,635 .43 .06 .33, .51 .001 172.75***
Large granular lymphocytes 8 362 .53 .30 .00, .83 .05 165.64***
Leukocyte subset percentage
Granulocytes 5 295 −.13 .10 −.31, .07 .20 7.24
Neutrophils 5 217 .04 .07 −.10, .18 .56 3.75
Monocytes 7 277 .06 .09 −.12, .23 .55 10.82
Lymphocytes 7 350 .06 .06 −.05, .16 .30 1.34
T lymphocytes 10 497 −.05 .09 −.22, .13 .62 28.05***
T-helper lymphocytes 14 642 −.24 .04 −.31, −.16 .001 13.61
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes
15 692 .09 .04 .01, .16 .03 9.28

B lymphocytes 5 248 −.11 .07 −.24, .02 .09 1.46
Natural killer cells 15 693 .24 .11 .03, .42 .02 90.19***
Total immunoglobulins
Serum IgA 4 91 .12 .11 −.10, .33 .30 0.95
Serum IgM 3 67 .14 .13 −.12, .37 .30 0.61
Secretory IgA secretion rate 6 293 .22 .08 .06, .37 .008 6.92
Secretory IgA concentration 8 337 .22 .09 .05, .38 .01 13.05
Basal cytokine levels
Interleukin-1β 4 89 −.01 .11 −.23, .21 .91 0.25
Natural killer cell function
Natural killer cell cytotoxicity 37 1,398 .30 .05 .20, .39 .001 108.85***
Per-cell cytotoxicity 8 287 .12 .11 −.09, .32 .26 18.12*
Lymphocyte proliferation
Proliferation to ConA 17 706 −.17 .04 −.24, −.09 .001 14.12
Proliferation to PHA 26 1,120 −.17 .04 −.23, −.10 .001 35.36
Proliferation to PWM 10 480 −.10 −.05 −.19, −.01 .03 5.84
Cytokine production
Interleukin-1β 3 78 .01 .12 −.23, .23 .98 5.78
Interleukin-4 3 136 −.19 .11 −.39, .03 .08 2.38
Interleukin-6 3 143 .28 .09 .13, .44 .001 12.84**
Interferon-γ 3 96 .21 .11 .01, .40 .05 0.24
Note. CI = confidence interval; IgA = immunoglobulin A; IgM = immunoglobulin M; ConA = concanavalin A; PHA = phytohemagglutinin; PWM =
pokeweed mitogen.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.

Table 4
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Brief Naturalistic Stress in Healthy Participants

Leukocytes 9 249 .20 .07 .07, .32 .002 12.95
Granulocytes 3 56 .01 .15 −.27, .29 .93 0.01
Neutrophils 5 103 .11 .11 −.07, .34 .18 2.33
Monocytes 6 120 .06 .10 −.13, .25 .52 3.90
Lymphocytes 9 236 .06 .08 −.10, .23 .46 10.46
T lymphocytes 5 110 .03 .10 −.18, .22 .81 0.05
T-helper lymphocytes 7 197 .06 .08 −.09, .21 .43 1.08
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes 6 185 .05 .08 −.10, .20 .50 1.74
T-helper:T-cytotoxic ratio 12 351 .01 .07 −.11, .14 .84 13.68
B lymphocytes 5 126 .48 .56 −.51, .92 .35 99.48***
Natural killer cells 5 103 −.15 .11 −.35, .06 .16 2.06
Monocytes 4 98 .11 .11 −.10, .32 .30 2.33
Lymphocytes 3 97 −.13 .11 −.33, .08 .23 2.05
T lymphocytes 5 160 −.16 .18 −.47, .19 .36 13.67**
T-helper lymphocytes 11 350 −.11 .10 −.29, .09 .28 26.56**
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes 12 362 −.03 .06 −.14, .08 .60 8.84
B lymphocytes 3 121 .07 .53 −.74, .80 .89 42.48***
Natural killer cells 5 163 −.02 .19 −.38, .35 .93 18.20**
Serum IgA 6 243 .11 .07 −.02, .24 .10 1.28
Serum IgG 7 290 .06 .06 −.06, .17 .37 2.54
Serum IgM 7 290 .02 .10 −.17, .21 .83 13.41*
Secretory IgA rate −.50, .63 31.31***
4 139 .09 .33 .78

Secretory IgA concentration 9 350 .19 .18 −.20, .46 .40 66.97***
Specific immunoglobulin
Epstein-Barr virus 7 359 .20 .04 .10, .30 .001 6.56
Herpes simplex virus 4 225 .18 .08 −.02, .34 .08 4.97
Complement molecule
C3 3 116 −.16 .10 −.34, .03 .09 1.77
Natural killer cell cytotoxicity 14 468 −.11 .05 −.21, −.01 .04 14.55
Proliferation to ConA 9 220 −.32 .15 −.56, −.03 .03 27.08***
Proliferation to PHA 14 443 −.19 .09 −.35, −.02 .03 33.38***
Proliferation to PWM 3 106 −.17 .15 −.43, .12 .24 4.75
Cytokine production
Interleukin-1β 6 149 .11 .08 −.05, .27 .17 15.07***
Interleukin-2 4 107 −.17 .36 −.71, .49 .63 27.34***
Interleukin-4 3 81 −.10 .12 −.32, .13 .39 0.69
Interleukin-6 3 100 .26 .11 .06, .44 .01 0.79
Interleukin-10 3 95 .41 .11 .21, .57 .001 1.65
Interferon-γ 8 314 −.30 .13 −.51, .05 .02 28.76***
Tumor necrosis factor-α 3 100 .18 .19 −.19, .51 .34 5.10
Note. CI = confidence interval; IgA = immunoglobulin A; IgG = immunoglobulin G; IgM = immunoglobulin M; ConA = concanavalin A; PHA =
phytohemagglutinin; PWM = pokeweed mitogen.
*
p < .05.
**
p <.01.
***
p <.001.

Table 5
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Brief Naturalistic Stress in Participants With Asthma
Neutrophil function
Superoxide release with 3 216 .20 .07 .06, .32 .004 0.39
FMLP
Superoxide release with 3 216 .37 .07 .24, .49 .001 0.68
PHA
Natural killer cell 3 216 −.33 .07 −.45, −.21 .001 0.50
cytotoxicity
Proliferation to PHA 3 216 .32 .07 .19, .43 .001 0.35
Note. CI = confidence interval; FMLP = N-formyl-met-leu-phe; PHA = phytohemagglutinin.


Table 6
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Stressful Event Sequences in Healthy Participants

Monocytes 3 113 −.02 .10 −.21, .17 .87 0.39
Lymphocytes 5 223 .05 .07 −.09, .18 .49 2.65
T lymphocytes 5 213 −.02 .07 −.16, .12 .82 0.37
T-helper lymphocytes 9 566 .03 .11 −.19, .25 .81 39.29***
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes 8 544 −.14 .15 −.41, .15 .35 58.22***
T-helper:T- 6 296 .06 .08 −.09, .21 .44 7.54
cytotoxic ratio
B lymphocytes 5 185 .02 .08 −.13, .17 .76 0.35
Natural killer cells 4 370 .17 .09 .00, .34 .05 5.06
T lymphocytes 3 129 .02 .09 −.16, .19 .85 0.11
B lymphocytes 3 129 −.04 .09 −.22, .14 .67 0.57
Epstein-Barr virus 3 198 .21 .07 .07, .34 .003 1.18
Natural killer cell 13 698 −.03 .17 −.29, .34 .87 164.40***
cytotoxicity
Proliferation to ConA 6 297 −.04 .06 −.15, .08 .53 2.53
Proliferation to PHA 11 675 .10 .10 −.09, .28 .32 42.25***
Proliferation to PWM 7 284 .12 .16 −.19, .40 .45 28.72***
Note. CI = confidence interval; ConA = concanavalin A; PHA = phytohemagglutinin; PWM = pokeweed mitogen.
***
p < .001.

Table 7
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Chronic Stress in Healthy Participants

Leukocytes 4 240 .07 .07 −.06, .19 .32 2.12
Neutrophils 3 124 .36 .36 −.33, .79 .31 20.45***
Eosinophils 3 124 −.07 .22 −.47, .35 .75 8.07*
Monocytes 4 240 −.04 .17 −.36, .29 .83 14.33**
Lymphocytes 4 240 −.06 .10 −.25, .13 .54 5.24
T lymphocytes 5 470 −.03 .05 −.12, .06 .55 2.75
T-helper lymphocytes 10 786 −.05 .04 −.12, .03 .22 8.54
T-helper:T-cytotoxic ratio 6 528 −.11 .08 −.29, .08 .26 17.47**
Activated B lymphocytes 3 138 −.02 .09 −.19, .15 .82 0.03
Natural killer cells 4 158 −.14 .32 −.65, .45 .65 33.61***
Monocytes 3 224 .08 .10 −.11, .26 .42 3.18
T lymphocytes 5 522 −.03 .05 −.13, .07 .59 4.93
T-helper lymphocytes 10 860 −.07 .06 −.18, .03 .19 19.45*
T-cytotoxic lymphocytes 10 860 .02 .05 −.08, .11 .75 13.72*
Natural killer cells 6 246 .04 .09 −.13, .21 .64 7.85
Antibody to herpes simplex 3 185 .44 .34 −.19, .81 .17 20.78***
virus 1
Antibody to influenza after 3 304 −.22 .05 −.33, −.11 .001 0.38
vaccination
Natural killer cell −.12 −.20, −.01
8 563 .05 .04 11.58

cytotoxicity
Proliferation to ConA 4 486 −.13 .06 −.24, −.02 .02 4.06
Proliferation to PHA 6 636 −.16 .06 −.27, −.05 .004 8.75
Cytokine production
Interleukin-2 3 355 −.21 .05 −.31, −.11 .001 1.50
Note. CI = confidence interval; ConA = concanavalin A; PHA = phytohemagglutinin.

*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.

Table 8
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Distant Stressors and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
in Healthy Participants
Natural killer cell 3 94 −.05 .25 −.49, .41 .84 7.67*

cytotoxicity
Note. CI = confidence interval.

*
p < .05.

Table 9
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Major and Minor Life Events of Unknown Duration
in Healthy Participants

Lymphocytes 5 537 −.18 .17 −.47, .14 .27 20.28***
T lymphocytes 4 237 .00 .07 −.13, .13 .99 0.00
T-helper:T-cytotoxic ratio 3 70 .14 .38 −.54, .71 .71 12.11**
T lymphocytes 3 151 .20 .21 −.21, .55 .34 7.61*
Natural killer cells 5 261 .00 .06 −.12, .12 .99 0.00
Serum IgA 3 124 −.07 .10 −.26, .14 .52 2.19
Serum IgG 3 124 −.06 .10 −.24, .13 .54 2.06
Serum IgM 3 124 .03 .09 −.15, .21 .72 0.72
Secretory IgA rate 3 276 −.08 .10 −.26, .11 .43 3.97
Secretory IgA concentration 4 101 −.16 .14 −.42, .12 .25 4.34
Epstein-Barr virus 3 317 −.02 .11 −.23, .19 .86 5.65
Natural killer cell cytotoxicity 12 672 −.07 .07 −.20, .07 .35 29.39***
Proliferation to ConA 3 72 −.13 .15 −.35, .16 .38 2.49

Proliferation to PHA 4 131 −.26 .15 −.50, .03 .08 6.11
Note. CI = confidence interval; IgA = immunoglobulin A; IgG = immunoglobulin G; IgM = immunoglob-ulin M; ConA = concanavalin A; PHA =
phytohemagglutinin.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.

Table 10
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Major and Minor Life Events of Unknown Duration
in Participants With HIV/AIDS

T-cytotoxic lymphocytes 6 669 −.14 .08 −.29, .01 .08 17.92**
T-helper:T- 3 356 −.02 .05 −.13, .09 .70 0.09
cytotoxic ratio
Natural killer cells 3 261 −.27 .06 −.38, −.15 .001 0.30
T-helper lymphocytes 4 1,026 −.02 .06 −.15, .10 .73 7.58

**
p < .01.

Table 11
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Global Stress Appraisals in Healthy Participants

T lymphocytes 3 241 −.15 .09 −.31, .03 .10 3.15
Naive T lymphocytes 3 241 −.09 .11 −.29, .12 .41 4.29
Total immunoglobulin
Serum IgG 4 332 .02 .10 −.18, .20 .87 7.51
Natural killer cell 4 151 −.11 .09 −.27, .06 .21 1.85
cytotoxicity
Note. CI = confidence interval; IgG = immunoglobulin G.


Table 12
Meta-Analysis of Immune Responses to Stress Appraisals and Intrusive Thoughts Within
Healthy Stressed Populations

T-helper lymphocytes 3 462 −.10 .11 −.31, .11 .35 7.52*
Natural killer cell 3 566 −.15 .06 −.27, −.02 .02 7.97
cytotoxicity

*
p < .05.
***
p < .001.

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Psychol Bull. 2004 July ; 130(4): 601–630.

Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-

Suzanne C. Segerstrom and

In addition to the presence of difficult circumstances, investigators also use life-event

Overview of the Immune System

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Components of the Immune System

of understanding the relationship of psychosocial stressors to the immune system, it is useful

Finally, complement is a family of proteins involved in natural immunity. Complement protein

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

An important immunological development is the recognition that specific immunity in humans

Protein production—either of antibody or cytokines—can be measured in vitro by stimulating

Pathways Between Stress and the Immune System

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

immunological changes in response to infection. Immunological activation in mammals results

Models of Stress, the Immune System, and Health

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Who Is Vulnerable to Stress-Induced Immune Changes?

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Loss of self-regulation is also characteristic of disease states. In autoimmune disease, for

The Present Analysis

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

by consensus. Subgroups for moderator analyses were similarly decided.

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

laboratory methods they utilize to assess a specific immune process.

zero (Rosenthal, 1991; Shadish & Haddock, 1994).

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Handling missing data—Occasionally authors of studies failed to report the descriptive or

Handling dependent data—The validity of a meta-analysis rests on the assumption that

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Interpreting the Meta-Analytic Findings

Meta-Analytic Results for the Effects of Stressors

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

heterogeneity, we examined whether effect sizes varied according to demographic

Brief naturalistic stressors—Table 4 presents the meta-analysis of brief naturalistic

we examined whether effect sizes varied according to demographic characteristics of the

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Stressful event sequences—The meta-analysis of stressful event sequences is presented

Chronic stressors—Chronic stressors included dementia caregiving, living with a

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Distant stressors—Distant stressors were traumatic events such as combat exposure or

Meta-Analytic Results for the Effects of Checklists and Ratings

lymphocytes. It is unrelated to the number of T-helper lymphocytes, the percentage of T-

Global stress appraisals and intrusive thoughts—The meta-analysis of stress

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Evidence Regarding Type I Error and Publication Bias

presented here are robust.

dramatically overestimate effect sizes.

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Models of Stress and the Immune System

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Individual Differences and Immune Change Under Stress

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

people’s cardiovascular and neuroendocrine responses to stressful experience are dependent

Mechanisms of Stress Effects on the Immune System

Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 February 7.

Stress, the Immune System, and Disease