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Töres TheorellProfessor Emeritus

About me

As a retired professor Töres doesn’t take PI responsibility for new projects but he is still active in several projects at the Institute, in particular those based upon the epidemiological data base slosh. He doesn’t take any new doctoral students and has only one doctoral student left, Annica Kempe (child delivery and maternal mortality in Yemen). During later years he has established collaboration with Fredrik Ullén, professor of neurobiology at the Karolinska Institute. A large project within that collaboration which Ullén has the main responsibility for, is the study of musicality and how this can relate to emotional competence and its opposite alexithymia as well as to psychosocial factors. This project is supported mainly by the Tercentenary Fund (Jubileumsfonden) and is based mainly on the Swedish Twin Registry. Töres has initially been responsible for the Swedish part of an international project entitled IPD and is still a member of that network. Hugo Westerlund is now the Swedish leader of that project. A number of cohort studies in Europe have been merged for the examination of psychosocial work environment factors in relation to somatic and mental illnesses (the demand control support model as well as the effort reward imbalance model, long working hours, insecure employment). The number of participants in this study is in the order of 160 000 from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium. This study has made it possible to study these relationships in subgroups of the populations. Mika Kivimäki in Finland has the main responsibility for the whole IPD study. Töres has also had the main responsibility for the Swedish part of another international study namely a study of health effects for employees of downsizing with participation from Sweden, France, Hungary and Great Britain (PI for the whole study Harvey M Brenner). He has previously been active in priority committees in the Swedish scientific councils and was an expert in the governmental commission on public health 1998-2000. During recent years he has been the chairman of three governmental expert committees (SBU) for examining the scientific evidence of a relationship between different aspects of the work environment on one hand and depressive symptoms, exhaustion, coronary heart disease and stroke.

He has participated in the publication of more than 450 original scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and he has also been the editor of textbooks. Among his more successful books are Karasek RA and Theorell T Healthy Work (Basic Books) 1990,  Theorell T Psychological health effects of musical experiences (Springer) 2014, and Romanowska J, Nyberg A and Theorell T Developing leadership and employee health through the arts (Springer) 2016

Education: MD PhD, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm

Profile and projects in the Research Database

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • A long-term perspective on cardiovascular job stress research

    2019. Töres Theorell. Journal of Occupational Health 61 (1), 3-9

    Article

    This review provides perspectives on cardiovascular occupational stress research since the 1960s until now. The author argues for closer links between basic science and clinical follow-up examinations of patients. In an excellent way urinary excretion of adrenaline and noradrenaline during wake hours mirrors day to day or week to week variations in sympathomedullary activity which could be related to variations in the patient's and cardiovascular and psychosocial situation. Modern methods for following variations over time in heart contractility should also be related to the patients' psychosocial situation. In addition the author argues for more extensive use of the increasing knowledge regarding regeneration and vagal activity in relation to variations in job conditions and development or prevention of cardiovascular disease.

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  • Associations Between Musical Aptitude, Alexithymia, and Working in a Creative Occupation

    2019. Töres Theorell, Guy Madison, Fredrik Ullén. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 13 (1), 49-57

    Article

    Musical aptitude and ability to handle emotions are hypothesized to be important predictors of creative work. The associations between musical aptitude, alexithymia, and having a creative occupation were assessed with linear multiple regression for men and women separately. Participants in the Swedish Twin Registry participated in an online survey, including musical tests for rhythm, pitch and melody discrimination, an IQ test and a test for alexithymia (inability to handle emotions). They also provided a job description, which was coded according to the O*NET system. The level of creativity for each occupation was defined by the O*NET mean rating of thinking creatively. Musicians (n = 43) were excluded. For men (n = 1,327), pitch predicted having creative work. This independent contribution was significant when controlling for age, education, and intelligence although the magnitude of the association decreased when the intelligence score was included. For women (n = 1,908), alexithymia and rhythm predicted having creative work, controlling for age and education. With intelligence score, the independent contribution of rhythm score became nonsignificant while the contribution of alexithymia remained significant. For men, a high pitch score is associated with having creative work, regardless of education and general intelligence. For women ability to handle emotions is associated with creative work. Since subjects working professionally as musicians were excluded from the analyses the associations are not confined to musical creativity but seem to have a more general nature, suggesting that musical aptitude taps into domain-general factors of importance for real life creative engagement.

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  • Cultural activity at work

    2019. Töres Theorell, Anna Nyberg. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 92 (8), 1131-1137

    Article

    Purpose Several studies have shown that cultural activities may promote health. There are also prospective population studies which show that regular participation in cultural activities could reduce morbidity and mortality. To what extent such associations could be applied to the work arena is not so well known, although findings in a few studies support the assumption that cultural activities organized from the work site might improve employee health. An important question discussed in the literature is the extent to which associations between cultural activity at work and employee mental health could be reversed, for instance, with depressive mood resulting in withdrawal from cultural activity at work (backwords) rather than the opposite (forwards). The present study addresses this question. Methods Using a biennial national job survey with seven waves (SLOSH), we examined 2-year follow-up periods in 7193 men and 9313 women in the years 2006-2018. The question regarding cultural activity at work was examined prospectively (using multilevel structural equation modelling) both forwards and backwards in relation to a standardized score for depressive mood (SCL-CD6) in participants working at least 30% both at start and end of the 2-year period. Results The analyses were made separately for men and women and with age and education level as confounders. The findings show that there are highly significant prospective relationships for both men and women in both directions concomitantly. Conclusions Participation in cultural activity at work may protect employees from worsening depressive feelings, but depressive feelings may also inhibit participation in such activities.

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  • Endangering yourself to save another

    2019. Igor Radun (et al.). Transportation Research Part F 64, 318-322

    Article

    Unlike hypothetical trolley problem studies and an ongoing ethical dilemma with autonomous vehicles, road users can face similar ethical dilemmas in real life. Swerving a heavy vehicle towards the road-side in order to avoid a head-on crash with a much lighter passenger car is often the only option available which could save lives. However, running off-road increases the probability of a roll-over and endangers the life of the heavy vehicle driver. We have created an experimental survey study in which heavy vehicle drivers randomly received one of two possible scenarios. We found that respondents were more likely to report they would ditch their vehicle in order to save the hypothetical driver who fell asleep than to save the driver who deliberately diverted their car towards the participant's heavy vehicle. Additionally, the higher the empathy score, the higher the probability of ditching a vehicle. Implications for autonomous vehicle programming are discussed. 

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  • Bidirectional associations between psychological distress and hearing problems

    2018. Raphael M. Herr (et al.). International Journal of Audiology 57 (11), 816-824

    Article

    Objective: Hearing problems are a significant public health concern. It has been suggested that psychological distress may represent both a cause and a consequence of hearing problems. Prospective data that allow testing such potential bi-directionality have thus far been lacking. The present study aimed to address this knowledge gap. Random (RE) and fixed effects (FE) panel regression models estimated the association of psychological distress (GHQ-12) and participant-reported hearing problems. Data from 18 annual waves of the British Household Panel Survey were used (n = 10,008). Psychological distress was prospectively associated with self-reported hearing problems in women (multivariable odds ratios (ORs) >= 1.44; one-year time lag >= 1.16) and men (ORs >= 1.15; time lag >= 1.17). Conversely, self-reported hearing problems were associated with increases in psychological distress in both sexes (OR >= 1.26; time lag >= 1.08). These associations were independent of the analytical strategy and of adjustment for sociodemographic variables, lifestyle factors, and measurement period. We present first evidence of a bidirectional association between psychological distress and self-reported hearing problems. These findings suggest that stress management interventions may contribute to the prevention of self-reported hearing problems, and, in turn, alleviating self-reported hearing problems may reduce psychological distress.

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  • Body mass index and risk of dementia

    2018. Mika Kivimäki (et al.). Alzheimer's & Dementia 14 (5), 601-609

    Article

    Introduction: Higher midlife body mass index (BMI) is suggested to increase the risk of dementia, but weight loss during the preclinical dementia phase may mask such effects.

    Methods: We examined this hypothesis in 1,349,857 dementia-free participants from 39 cohort studies. BMI was assessed at baseline. Dementia was ascertained at follow-up using linkage to electronic health records (N = 6894). We assumed BMI is little affected by preclinical dementia when assessed decades before dementia onset and much affected when assessed nearer diagnosis.

    Results: Hazard ratios per 5-kg/m2 increase in BMI for dementia were 0.71 (95% confidence interval = 0.66-0.77), 0.94 (0.89-0.99), and 1.16 (1.05-1.27) when BMI was assessed 10 years, 10-20 years, and >20 years before dementia diagnosis.

    Conclusions: The association between BMI and dementia is likely to be attributable to two different processes: a harmful effect of higher BMI, which is observable in long follow-up, and a reverse-causation effect that makes a higher BMI to appear protective when the follow-up is short.

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  • Long working hours and depressive symptoms

    2018. Marianna Virtanen (et al.). Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health 44 (3), 239-250

    Article

    Objectives This systematic review and meta-analysis combined published study-level data and unpublished individual-participant data with the aim of quantifying the relation between long working hours and the onset of depressive symptoms.

    Methods We searched PubMed and Embase for published prospective cohort studies and included available cohorts with unpublished individual-participant data. We used a random-effects meta-analysis to calculate summary estimates across studies.

    Results We identified ten published cohort studies and included unpublished individual-participant data from 18 studies. In the majority of cohorts, long working hours was defined as working >= 55 hours per week. In multivariable-adjusted meta-analyses of 189 729 participants from 35 countries [96 275 men, 93 454 women, follow-up ranging from 1-5 years, 21 747 new-onset cases), there was an overall association of 1.14 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03-1.25] between long working hours and the onset of depressive symptoms, with significant evidence of heterogeneity (I-2 = 45.1%, P=0.004). A strong association between working hours and depressive symptoms was found in Asian countries (1.50, 95% CI 1.13-2.01), a weaker association in Europe (1.11, 95% CI 1.00-1.22), and no association in North America (0.97, 95% CI 0.70-1.34) or Australia (0.95, 95% CI 0.70-1.29). Differences by other characteristics were small.

    Conclusions This observational evidence suggests a moderate association between long working hours and onset of depressive symptoms in Asia and a small association in Europe.

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