Dr. Peter Schnall Announces Retirement from the University of California at Irvine to Pursue Role at the Healthy Work Campaign

Dr. Peter Schnall will apply his 40 years of experience as an epidemiologist and researcher to solving the “stress” problem facing American workers and businesses in his new co-director role at the Healthy Work Campaign.

Dr. Peter Schnall has announced that he is retiring from his tenured role as Professor of Medicine at the University of California at Irvine, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) in order to take on a full-time role as co-director of the Healthy Work Campaign. This new role is a continuation of Dr. Schnall’s decades of deep research into cultivating workplace wellness. Dr. Schnall has dedicated the past 40 years of his career to studying workplace conditions that contribute to the development of hypertension. He is regarded as an experienced epidemiologist with a history of advocacy for raising awareness about the impact of workplace stress on physical and mental illness.

In addition to being a respected researcher and professor, Dr. Schnall has earned a reputation for collaborating with notable researchers and physicians in his quest to study, explore, and advocate on behalf of workers in the realm of workplace conditions. His list of past and current collaborators includes Dr. Robert Karasek, Dr. Töres Theorell, Dr. Thomas Pickering, Dr. Marnie Dobson, Dr. Paul A. Landsbergis, Dr. Ellen Rosskam, and many others. 

Through his pivot from academia to a co-director role at the Healthy Work Campaign, Dr. Schnall will continue his legacy of assembling the best of the best in the worlds of science and research to crack the case regarding why the United States lags so dramatically behind other high-income countries in addressing the health effects of stress on workers. The campaign that drives the work of the Healthy Work Campaign is focused on educating working people, employers, labor leaders, journalists, and policymakers on the link between workplace stress and wellness.

Dr. Schnall will use his four decades of research to supervise major policy projects in his co-director role at the Healthy Work Campaign. In addition, he will oversee the creation of educational content that will be used to disseminate information about building health-minded workplaces using science-backed methods. At the core of the Healthy Work Campaign is the belief that healthy workplaces are good for both workers and businesses.

Leadership members at the Healthy Work Campaign believe that showing businesses the advantages of building healthy workplaces can play a vital role in reducing the hesitancy among decision-makers regarding investing in stress-reducing policies. It is the intention of the Healthy Work Campaign that the work being done today will equip workers and organizations with strategies for implementing organizational and cultural changes that allow people to do their best work in the best conditions. The Healthy Work Campaign is best known for launching the scientifically validated Healthy Work Survey. The Healthy Work Survey is a free online tool for working people, unions, businesses, and other organizations that allows anyone to assess workplace stressors.

“Among work stress researchers and advocates, this survey is considered a vital first step towards enabling changes to make work safer and healthier,” according to Dr. Schnall. He considers the work being done through the campaign as the “most important work” of his life. In addition to stepping into the role of co-director at the Healthy Work Campaign, Dr. Schnall will continue his work as the founder and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology that serves as the parent organization of the Healthy Work Campaign.