Internationale Zeitschrift für globale Gesundheit

A Short note on Health psychology

Kristin Holmes

Health psychology is that the study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. it’s concerned with understanding how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors contribute to physical health and illness. Psychological factors can affect health directly. for instance , chronically occurring environmental stressors affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary– adrenal axis, cumulatively, can harm health. Behavioral factors also can affect an individual’s health. for instance , certain behaviors can, over time, harm (smoking or consuming excessive amounts of alcohol) or enhance health (engaging in exercise). Health psychologists take a biopsychosocial approach. In other words, health psychologists understand health to be the merchandise not only of biological processes (e.g., a virus, tumor, etc.) but also of psychological (e.g., thoughts and beliefs), behavioral (e.g., habits), and social processes (e.g., socioeconomic status and ethnicity).