ILLNESS AND HEALTH CARE

Health psychology is the study of physical illness and addresses problems such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and coronary heart disease (CHD) with a focus on health behaviors (eg. diet, exercise, sleep, help-seeking, medication adherence), illness beliefs, behavior change, and health outcomes. This first unit will describe the background to health psychology and how it compares to a more traditional biomedical model. It will explore the 4 key theoretical frameworks used in health psychology: the biopsychosocial model, health and illness as a continuum, the direct and indirect pathways between health and illness, and the focus on variability.