Health Psychology

FUTURE OF HEALTH
PSYCHOLOGY
Health psychology is a rapidly growing field. As increasing
numbers of people seek to take control of their own health,
more and more people are seeking health-related information
and resources. Health psychologists are focused on educating
people about their own health and well-being, so they are
perfectly suited to fill this rising demand.
. Health psychology and the related field of behavioural medicine should focus on
the interplay among biological dispositions, behaviour, and social context. The field
might advance by building better collaboration with other fields of medicine, sharing
expertise on technical aspects of psychometric outcomes assessment, identifying
behavioural interventions to reduce health disparities, and creating an infrastructure
that fosters multidisciplinary research.
The strong body of research in health psychology and the allied field of behavioural
medicine rarely finds its way into the clinical practice of medicine. The challenge for
contemporary health psychology is to develop integration with clinical health care.
Form better collaboration between health psychology and health care providers.
For example, breast cancer management, particularly in the United States, has
been very aggressive: most women receive adjuvant chemotherapy. Growing
literature now indicates that adjuvant chemotherapy may be associated with
losses in cognitive function. In particular, the use of adjuvant therapy results in
problems with both working and long-term memory (Silverman, Castellon &
Ganz, 2007) although there is still some controversy about the magnitude of the
effects (Ahles et al., 2008). Selective estrogen receptor modulators, such as
tamoxifen, might also produce a problem with cognitive functioning (Vardy,
Rourke & Tannock, 2007) . Success in treating cancer has created some new
challenges. With a growing number of potential survivors comes the need to
investigate social, emotional, and cognitive effects of survivorship and cancer
treatment (Ganz, 2008).
• Create an infrastructure that fosters multidisciplinary research. We need
to encourage more multidisciplinary research. There are plenty of
advocates for multidisciplinary collaboration. However, there are many
fewer examples of successful multidisciplinary achievement. One of the
best examples of a successful collaboration is the work by Kielcolt-Glaser
and Glaser that combines state-of-the-art psychosocial assessment with
advanced methods from immunology.
• Apply psychological methodologies to assess patient outcomes.
Health outcomes are usually measured from the perspective of the
provider. A growing trend emphasizes the importance of measuring
health outcome from the perspective of the patient. Disease and
disability are of concern because they affect life expectancy and/or
life quality (Kaplan & Ries, 2008). For example, cancer and heart
disease are the two major causes of premature death in the United
States. In addition, disease or disability can make life less desirable. A
person with heart disease may face restrictions in daily living
activities and may be unable to work or participate in social activities
• We need a greater emphasis on the development of methods that
can capture these outcomes.
We should aim to stimulate and encourage the development of this field by
providing a range of new theoretical ideas and prompting novel approaches
and studies.
We should seek articles that present new hypotheses, concepts, theories or

models; illustrate how theories adapted from other disciplines may be
relevant to health psychology or provide recommendations to improve
current models or theories to enhance their utility. Papers do not need to
provide new empirical data, rather we are looking for papers that may
combine critical analysis of current models, synthesis of early empirical
work, or take work from another area, and explore the potential for their
utility as it can be applied to the context of health. The idea is that your
manuscript should stimulate researchers in the field to test your hypotheses
and concepts within their own work and study subject.
DEVELOPMENT IN
PSYCHOLOGY
• Telehealth, or more broadly eHealth, is a new term or a novel way to
deliver health care (PausJenssen, Spooner, Wilson, & Wilson, 2008).
Behavioral telehealth has been used in one form or another for more
than 40 years, but current technological developments such as high-
speed Internet and wireless capabilities are making this form of
service delivery even more common However, it is clear that the
development, adoption, and implementation of a broad range of new
eHealth applications (e.g., online health information websites,
interactive electronic health records) holds tremendous promise
(Kreps & Neuhauser, 2010).
• \Stand back and make way for the growing area of digital health
psychology .
• The Internet has now greatly expand research opportunities and
increase accessibility to personal medical information. Researchers
are now conducting major surveys online with very little associated
time or money, and large databases can be made available to
research collaborations (more on this later). Even patients are going
to have more control over their health information.
Involving culture
• Professionals are now being trained in such a way that
they consider the cultural context as a part of the
personality of a patient.
• Individuals are not cultural free” is the new slogan in
the developmental process.
• Arihenbuwa proposed a new model that involves
environmental and cultural factors as the core in value
in health programs.

Health Psychology

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FUTURE OF HEALTH

We should seek articles that present new hypotheses, concepts, theories or

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