Current directions in stress and human immune function

• Psychological stress can dysregulate the human immune system.
• Stress can impact immunity differentially across individuals and contexts.
• Recent work in this area has made strides toward elucidating these differences.
• Future work holds promise for reducing stress's effects on physical health.

Psychological stress has been linked empirically with dysregulation of facets of the human immune system, yet these effects are not the same in every situation or population. Recent research has made strides toward understanding risk factors for immune dysregulation as well as why these risks occur. This review discusses mechanisms and mediators underlying the stress-immune relation, the role of context in determining whether an immunologic responses to stress is adaptive versus maladaptive, and the stress–immune relation in populations including children exposed to early adversity, older adults, and individuals with clinical diagnoses. The reviewed work holds great promise for further elucidating the circumstances under which psychological stress has immunological consequences, and provides new directions for work in this field.