Stress and social change in Poland

The paper reports the findings of qualitative research carried out in Nowa Huta-Kraków, which sought to explore the influences perceived to contribute to the experience of stress. Stress was seen as the main danger to health in transition, and as such a socially produced phenomenon linked to the lack of security of employment and low income, as well as to changing social relations, where social inequalities were increasing, and the enrichment of some was seen to be occurring at society's expense. The paper outlines a framework for conceptualising psychosocial health influences, where these are represented in terms specific to social space/time, indicating the implications of the findings for public health discourse.