The nature of health psychology

Health psychology is the study of the relationship between psychological behavior and physical health and illness, with an emphasis on “wellness” and the prevention of illness. Health psychologists study how people’s lifestyles and activities, emotional reactions, ways of interpreting events, and personality characteristics influence their physical health. Some health psychologists are involved primarily in research, whereas others work directly with physicians and other health professionals to implement research findings.

The field of health psychology is relatively new, but it has grown exponentially in the last decade in terms of both research and practice. Throughout most of history, the relationship between mind and physical health had been a widely accepted fact. However, the discovery of physiological causes for infections diseases such as typhoid and syphilis in the late 1800s led doctors to search for only physiological causes of disease. This in turn led to such marked advances in medicine and public health during the last century that our life expectancy has increased more than 50 percent from 46.3 to 3.2 years for men and from 48.3 to 79.7 years for women. Concurrently, the major causes of death have shifted from pneumonia, influenza, tuberculosis, and gastrointestinal infection to cancer, heart and cardiovascular disease, accidents, and chronic lung diseases. Thus, causes of death have shifted from disease as a result of infection to disease brought on bu behavior and lifestyle. Once again we recognize that physical and mental health are related.