Theories Of Health Psychology

illness” (Kenworthy,Scott). Due to this reason, the notion about illness varies from individual to another. Moreover, there are two different models that can be used to define health and illness. They are social and bio-medical models. Bio-medical model makes its many different assumptions about health and illness. For example, it explains that “health is biological whereas illness is caused by something that is identifiable” (Waugh et al, 2008). This model further explains that illness is not permanent. After analyzing all the sides, we can see that how difficult it is to pinpoint the exact definitions of health and illness as we are constantly changing what we consider to be illnesses around the world.

(b) What is health psychology? What

The theory can be put into practice by a) encouraging healthy behavior and through proper maintenance. For example, studying the behavior pattern in sickness can permit unhealthy practice of an individual to be taken into consideration. Similarly, analyzing beliefs of an individual can be helpful as it will help to change the behavior pattern. b) It has been seen that health psychologist try to study treatment and preventive strategies of “illness”. By adapting different coping strategies one can easily prevent the onset of different illness. In addition, interventions during any sickness can also prevent it from getting worse. c) Health psychologists also “focus on the etiology and correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction”( Sarafino, Edward, and. Smith, 2002). d) Lastly, health psychologists also focuses to “improve the health care system and the formulation of health policy”( Sarafino et

It is needed because of it focuses to “promote health and prevent illness (Smith, Ian). Besides, a number of new trends within the different fields have been combined together to give rise to health psychology. There are a number of factors that caused health psychology to emerge. One of them is the “changing patterns of illness”. It has been found that health psychology was successful in changing the illness pattern in many developed countries like USA. If the rate of “infectious disease” is compared between 1898 and 1998, one can easily notice that there is less death due to infectious diseases in the western world (Phillips and Pitts). However, in recent times, chronic illness such as diabetes, cancer and heart diseases are leading causes of death. Lifestyle, social factors and psychological factors are considered as the main cause of these chronic illnesses. Health psychology is trying to find all the causes and is working to change them. In this way they assist people take care of their health which is also termed as “self care” (Sarafino, Edward, and. Smith, 2002). This led to great advancement in the field of “genetic research” as it aids to find out the main root (genetic makeup) of the problem. Another field called epidemiology also studies the closely about