Health Psychology - Chapter 1 PDF

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Health Psychology...

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M. Chiamaka Okonkwo Health Psychology Week 1 Activities

Syllabus/Course Tour Weekly Meetings Mondays from 2:30 to 3:45 in Colvard 4123 Four Aims: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Define “Health”. Define health psychology and describe its goals and sub-specialities Explain how various factors contribute to health, illness, and health disparities Describe how health psychology can be applied to prevent illness and promote health

Activities and Grading: 1. Class Activities: 40 points; 10% of total 2. Assignments: 70 points; 17.5 of total; 8 online assignments a. Due on Wednesday at the end of the day each week; usually posted on Monday b. Lowest assignment is dropped 3. Quizzes: 70 points; 17.5% of total points; 8 online assignments 4. Exams: 220 points; 55% of total; 3 exams: 1 st exam will be online, other 2 will be in person a. Final exam will be on December 9, 2019

Chapter 1: Introducing Health Psychology 1. Define health using the World Health Organization (WHO) definition. According to WHO, health is a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. 2. Identify the two general understandings of health an illness throughout history and resulting explanations of health an illness during the following periods: a) prehistoric; b) ancient Greece and Rome; c) Middle Ages; d) Renaissance; and e) post-Renaissance. Shown below 3. Describe what a health determinant is and provide examples. A health determinant is something that promotes or detracts from health (biomedical, biopsychosocial, and ecological systems/ecological) 4. Describe humoral theory and identify the person responsible for it.

Humoral theory is a theory created by Hippocrates that establishes that health is controlled by an equilibrium of 4 bodily fluids (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm). 5. Describe mind-body dualism and identify the person responsible for it. René Descartes described all of the basic reflexes of the body and came up with mind-body dualism (the idea that humans have two natures, both mental and physical) 6. Explain the biomedical model and its limitations. 1. Biomedical model of health: idea that illness always has a biological cause that became widely accepted during the nineteenth century and has three distinguishing features 1. It assumes that disease is the result of a pathogen (virus, bacterium, or other microorganism) 1. makes no provision for psychological social, or behavioral variables 2. Embraces reductionism: the view that complex phenomena such as health and disease must come from a single primary factor 2. Based on the Cartesian doctrine of mind-body dualism that considers the body and mind as separate and autonomous entities that interact minimally 3. Health is nothing more than the absence of disease 7. Describe the biopsychosocial perspective 8. Biopsychosocial (Mind-Body Perspective): recognizes that biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces act together to determine an individual’s health and vulnerability to disease 9. Describe the Ecological-Systems / Social-Ecological Approach. The ecological systems/social-ecological approach takes into accounts various systems that people are embedded within that impact health, such as the physical, health systems, socioeconomic forces, and health policies. This is the most comprehensive approach to health. 10. Define health psychology and identify its concerns and goals. Health psychology is a branch of psychology that applies psychological principles to enhance health and treat and prevent illness. It has specific goals: to (1) promote and maintain health, (2) prevent and treat illness, (3) understand the causes and correlates of health and illness, and (4) improve health care systems and policies. 11. Identify and differentiate between the four (4) subdisciplines in health psychology. 1. Clinical health psychologists (health-promoting interventions, such as helping individuals to manage weight, addictions, etc.) 2. Community health psychologists (help to manage community interventions to help develop positive spaces, institutions, and campaigns to promote healthy behaviors 3. Occupational health psychologists (manage the health and psychology of workers in the workplace to help promote things such as safety and work-life balance)

12. Identify three (3) concentrations of health psychology in the Health Psychology PhD program at UNCC 1. Clinical Psychology 2. Community Psychology 3. General Health Psychology

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Health psychology: the application of psychological principles and research to the enhancement of health and the prevention and treatment of illness o Health involved both physical and as well as psychological and social well-being o Health disparities: preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (Obamacare) o Signed in March 2010 by Barack Obama o Implemented to decrease the number of people who are uninsured

Health and Illness: Lessons from the Past: 

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Prehistoric Medicine o Trephination: Ancient medical surgery that involved drilling holes into patients’ bodies. o Public hygiene was improved by cleaning rites (ancient Egyptians) and in Mesopotamia, soap was manufactured, bathing facilities were designed, and public sewage was treated Greek and Roman Medicine o Aqueduct brought pure water into Rome and cleaning of public roads o Also passed regulations to ensure freshness of meat and other perishable foods o Hippocrates was the first to argue that disease is a natural phenomenon and that the causes of disease are knowable 1. Developed humoral theory: a healthy body and mind resulted from equilibrium of the humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm 2. To maintain balance, needed exercise, rest, a good diet, and avoidance of excesses o Claudius Galen also spent many years conducting dissections of animals and treating injuries Non-Western Medicine o Traditional Orientation Medicine (TOM): belief that internal harmony is essential for good health o Ayurveda: oldest-known medical system in the world, originating in India Middle Ages and the Renaissance o Illness was viewed as God’s punishment for evil, developed by great influence of the Christian church o During the Renaissance, scientific inquiry resurged, and more dissections occurred

Andreas Vesaltus did dissections on the human body and developed much more accurate depictions of the human body o René Descartes described all of the basic reflexes of the body and came up with mindbody dualism (the idea that humans have two natures, both mental and physical) Post-Renaissance Rationality o New anatomical theory of disease: theory that disease is found in internal organs, musculature, and skeleton system of the human body o Anton van Leeuwenhoek made first microscope and observed blood cells and structure of skeletal muscles Discoveries of the Nineteenth Century o Cellular theory: the idea that disease results when body cells malfunction or die o Louis Pasteur: came up with idea that life can only come from existing life and the germ theory of disease (idea that bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that invade body cells cause them to malfunction o William Morton used gas ether as an anesthetic and Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays Twentieth Century and the Dawn of a New Era o Biomedical model of health: idea that illness always has a biological cause that became widely accepted during the nineteenth century and has three distinguishing features 1. It assumes that disease is the result of a pathogen (virus, bacterium, or other microorganism)  makes no provision for psychological social, or behavioral variables  Embraces reductionism: the view that complex phenomena such as health and disease must come from a single primary factor 2. Based on the Cartesian doctrine of mind-body dualism that considers the body and mind as separate and autonomous entities that interact minimally 3. Health is nothing more than the absence of disease o Psychosomatic Medicine – developed largely to explain disorders that had no observable physical cause 1. Also founded in reductionism: idea that there is always one primary cause for a condition 2. Sigmund Freud coined the term conversion disorders that referred to unconscious emotional conflicts that had been converted to a physical form  Many of Freud’s ideas fell out of favor because of emphasis on unconscious, irrational urges  However, laid groundwork for connections between medicine and psychology 3. Franz Alexander helped to establish psychosomatic medicine, which is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of physical diseases thought to be caused by faulty processes in the mind  Eventually fell out of favor because of several weaknesses 4. Even though these ideas lost traction, they started trend toward viewing illness as multifactorial, that can be caused by host factors (genetic vulnerability or resiliency, environmental factors, behavioral factors, and psychological factors o Behavioral Medicine – explored the role of learned behaviors in health and disease o

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1. Neal Miller: used biofeedback (operant conditioning techniques to teach laboratory animals and humans to gain control over certain bodily functions; eventually showed that people could gain control over blood pressure and resting heart rate when made aware of psychological state) The Emergence of Health Psychology 1. Joseph Matarazzo was the president of the APA’s new division of health psychology in 1973 and created 4 new goals i. To study scientifically the etiology (causes or origins of specific diseases) ii. To promote health iii. To prevent and treat illness iv. To promote public health policy

Biopsychosocial (Mind-Body Perspective): recognizes that biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces act together to determine an individual’s health and vulnerability to disease 

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The Biological Context o Genomics: the study of genomes o A key element of the biological context is our species’ evolutionary history that studies natural selection and other evolutionary characteristics that impact what are healthy behaviors o Epigenetics: the effects of the environmental forces impact how genes are expressed  DNA methylation: a biochemical process that occurs in cells to regulate gene expression and can change in response to diet, tobacco use, and environmental toxins o Life-Course Perspective: theoretical perspective that focuses on age-related aspects of health and illness  Helps to consider the leading causes of health in terms of the age groups affected most The Psychological Context o Subjective well-being: the cognitive and emotional evaluations of a person’s life o The effectiveness of all health care interventions is powerfully influenced by a patient’s attitude (placebo effect) o Intervention can also manage tension, lessening negative reactions to treatment The Social Context o Birth cohort: group of people born within a years of each other  People born within same birth cohort have similar social pressures o Sociocultural Perspective: considers how social and cultural factors contribute to health and disease  Race, bias, income, and education can all affect health  Can also lead to beliefs that make an individual less or more likely to accept medical practices o Gender Perspective: focuses on the study of gender-specific health behaviors, problems, and barriers to health care  Men are more likely to make unhealthy food choices, be overweight, be at greater risk for nearly all the major diseases that affect both sexes

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Biopsychosocial “Systems” o Ecological-system approach: based on idea that our well-being and all of nature is best understood as hierarchy of systems where large systems are composed of smaller subsystems

Questions about a Health Psychologist Careers 

What Do Health Psychologists Do? o May serve as teachers, research scientists, or clinicians o Positive health: the scientific study of health assets that produce longer life and optimal human functioning...