Health Psychology

Health Psychology

Integrating behavioural sciences with the practice of medicine

Goals:

1. Identify psychosocial and behavioural factors that enchance or undermine health

2. Design and evaluate interventions that help people (i.e. help reduce disease risks, improve treatment, etc)

They tackle four behaviours to promote health

1. Smoking: Leading cause of preventable death in Canada

   1. Health psychologists can make interventions plan to avoid this (i.e. educating on the physical effects of smoking

2. Curb Alcohol Consumption: Binge drinking is five or more drinks occasion for men, four or more for women

   1. Associated with increases in cancer, liver problems, and pregnancy complications

3. Achieve a healthy weight

   1. Obesity leads to higher risk for heart disease, stroke, arthrities, cancer, cancer, and etc

   Tips:

   1. Exercise regularly

   2. Monitor total calories

   3. Get social support

   4. Control Portion Size

4. Exercise: Regular aerobic exercise (which promotes oxygen use by the body) has many benefits (30 mins of exercise is best)

• Lower blood pressure and risk for CHD

• Improve lung function

• Decrease disk of diabetes, breast, and colon cancer

Why is it hard for health Psychologists to promote change?

• Personal inertia (pressure to fit into the status quo)

• Misestimating risk and causes of death

• Feeling powerless to change

• Prevention programs attempt to stop unhealthy habits before they develop.