Elisabeth (Beth) Stelson is a licensed social worker and social epidemiologist whose research examines how working conditions — especially exposure to trauma — affect the health and well-being of low- and middle-income “helping professionals,” upon whose labor our health care and social welfare systems depend. This research program stems from Stelson’s practice experience managing programs focused on community health workers, intimate partner violence, and homelessness.

Utilizing quantitative, qualitative and community-engaged methods, Stelson applies a Total Worker Health framework, an approach developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), that ensures work is not only safe but also enhances overall well-being. To this end, Stelson has developed the Vicarious Occupational Trauma Exposure (VOTE) Index to identify and quantify how workers are exposed to vicarious trauma in their work environments. By focusing on the structural and occupational determinants of health in collaboration with the organizations with whom she works, her research contributes to a more resilient health-care, social welfare, and public health workforce and supports systems-level change to improve health outcomes for providers and the communities they serve.

Stelson has a second line of research focused on supporting the more than 400 million people living with long COVID around the globe — more specifically, their efforts to remain in the workforce and access care, and to reduce stigma around the disease. Since 2020, Stelson has been a member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, the first organization to systematically document long COVID. With the collaborative, Stelson has led multiple disability justice research studies and advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) around long COVID surveillance and health communication.

Stelson earned a master’s degree in public health and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a doctorate in population health sciences at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

Areas of Focus:

  • Occupational health of social and health services workers.
  • Vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress.
  • Total Worker Health approaches.
  • Social epidemiology and mixed methods.
  • Long COVID.

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