Health Psychology Notes August 27 2014 Chapter 1 Introducing Health Psychology Infectious diseases acute illnesses vs chronic diseases Many reasons people are living longer sanitation vaccination technology better health care better nutrition etc There are different causes of death for younger people than for older people younger people are more likely to die from unintentional injuries and violent deaths while older people are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease or diabetes Different ethnicities have different life expectancies likely because of SES preventative health behaviors social status etc Biomedical model traditional view that focuses on biological changes germ theory is popular disease is caused by a specific pathogen treatment of disease rather than person health is considered lack of illness Fails to recognize social and psychological processes affect your body state The model can t solve problems like why only certain people get ill even though more are exposed to the illness Biopsychosocial model health and illness are consequences of the interplay of biological psychological and social factors see PowerPoint for chart Acknowledges macro level processes while the biomedical model does not This model emphasizes health and illness not just illness Health is something that is achieved through biological social and psychological needs Health psychology how people stay healthy why people get sick how people respond both individuals and in groups it is the relationship between psychology and health through direct and indirect pathways there is a focus on variability individuals react differently to illness or health Most health psychologists work in private practice but also academia health care settings and business government August 29 2014 Chapter 2 Placebo inactive substance or condition that has the appearance of an active treatment and that may cause participants to improve or change and placebos that resemble true treatment are more effective than placebos that don t How do placebos work Psychological effects caused by placebos that may lead to physiological effects Placebos are used a comparison group typically in a double blind experiment Correlational studies can establish correlation but not causation There can be a positive or negative correlation The correlation coefficient tells you the strength of the correlation between two variables and whether it is positive or negative They cannot determine causation because you cannot know which variable came first or another variable could actually cause both of the original variables Cross sectional studies have participants of different ages are studied at one time They are more practical and can measure a wide variety of statistics at one time The goal is to measure a behavior and how it develops over time Longitudinal studies have participants of one cohorts studied at multiple times over a time period They are more accurate but less practical and suffer from drop out attrition Experiments need random assignment and variable manipulation must occur so that you can see if there is an impact on that effect Ex post facto designs the values of the independent variable are not manipulated but selected by the experimenter after the groups have naturally divided themselves Instead of the IV it is a subject variable Meta analysis a statistical technique for combining results of several studies when these studies have similar definitions of variables September 3rd 2014 Epidemiology branch of medicine that investigates factors that contributes to health or disease in a particular population Risk factor any characteristic or condition that occurs with greater frequency in people with a disease than in people free of that disease Example brca1 or brca2 genes and breast cancer Prevalence proportion of population that has a particular disease condition at a specific time Incidence number of new cases of disease or condition during a specific time period Randomized controlled trials are experimental study of the effects of a drug or treatment with human subjects from a broad population who are randomly assigned to either experimental or control group The goal is to determine the clinical efficacy and pharmacologic effects of the drug or procedure There has been a push to have all clinical trials registered before they begin and results reported after they ended Due to the nature of health research it is often unethical or impossible to perform true experiments so seven criteria need to be met to determine causation without experimentation 1 Dose response relationship must exist between possible cause and disease with a consistent correlation 2 Removal of the condition reduces the prevalence or incidence of the disease must be plausible 3 The cause must precede the disease 4 A cause and effect relationship between the condition and the disease 5 Research findings must be consistent 6 The strength of the association between the condition and the disease must be relatively high 7 The studies were appropriately designed Methodological tools fMRI mobile and wireless technologies Theory set of analytic statements that explain a set of phenomena they provide guidelines for research interventions and generate predictions that can be tested and modified they unite observations findings into general principles Reliability the extent to which a measure yields consistent results Validity the extent to which a measure measures what it intends to Describe epidemiological research methods observational vs natural experiments September 5th 2014 Prevalence vs Incidence risk factors etc Chapter 3 Illness behavior occurs before diagnosis and is any kinds of activity that people have a kind of symptom engage in and its main role is to determine health status Sick role behavior occurs after diagnosis and any kind of behavior that a person with a diagnosis engages in Stress determines whether people will experience symptoms and whether they go to the doctor Stressed people pay more attention to their body and are more likely to go to the doctor Being stressed can cause physiological changes like a weakened immune system headaches fatigue weight gain insomnia etc People who are in a good mood experience fewer symptoms than people in a bad mood and can remember less instances of being sick and severity is perceived as less when in a good mood People in a bad mood are more pessimistic that anything can be done to help their symptoms and are