FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W HEALTH PSYCH: NOTES PACKET #10 CHAPTER 15: HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY – CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE 1. There are lots of good reasons to care about health psych. In the book and lectures, we discuss FOUR particular pros – list and explain each one below. a. Reason 1: There are substantial improvements in health behaviors and increase in life expectancy i. Explain: - dropping in leading causes of death ii. - drop in percent of Americans with high cholesterol iii. - drop in number of traffic fatalities iv. Drop in percentage of smokers b. Reason 2: Increase in Developments in biological bases of behavior i. Explain: Psychological and biological factors tend to influence each other. Psychological well being is important because when inflamed such as stressed, physical and mental disorders can occur such as depression, hypertension, coronary heart disease. The more that we understand, the more interventions there are to come up with. c. Reason 3: Health care system continues to change. i. Explain: ACA, obamacare or medicaid offer cheaper access to health care for a broader spectrum of people. Health psychologists can then make interventions that produce better health literacy, ensure effective behavioral interventions to more people, and work on the federal or state government level to help draft legislation or policies for more access to health care. d. Reason 4: Technological changes and management of health i. Explain: Smartphones and the internet creates an avenue for more intervention such as reminders to take meds, tracking steps, exercise, macronutrients, and weight loss plans. There are also new data sources such as twitter where we can pull data from such as on heart disease or negative emotions. Online appointments have also come into practice for GP on video, therapy appointments on video, or send photos such as post surgery photos to doctors. 2. That said, many challenges make continued advances in health psychology difficult to attain. Discuss these below: a. The pandemic has caused a lot of health problems for people. Not only are people sick from COVID-19, but there is a drop in physical activity and some are FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W unwilling to receive a vaccination and lack of willingness to wear a mask. Addressing lifestyle changes and choices is also a challenge as there is still an epidemic of obesity and lack of willingness to engage in physical activity. SES also plays a role in income inequality which affects the likelihood of people in a low SES to go see a doctor when the cost is too high for them. Education doesn’t necessarily work, and is not enough to change behavior, so there must be persuasive scientific evidence to support a reason to change behavior. Collaborating across the medical field must be done for studies that can show data that shows the best way to address those in need of intervention. Health promotion 1. Define health promotion (HINT: We did this awhile ago, like in Chapter 1…): a. It is the philosophy that health is an individual yet collective achievement done by enabling one to increase control over and improve health by giving them the tools that allow them to take more control over their health and the health behaviors that they will engage in. 2. Why is health promotion likely to be a focus of health psychologists moving forward? Explain. a. It should be the main focus since health psychologists can evaluate and identify what methods of a behavior changing program are the most potent and most effective strategies such as CBT, self efficacy, and self control; that determine the best method of treatment based on its characteristics. Because of this determination, health psychs can then use the best characteristics to create cost-effective and affordable effective interventions such as also using texts, emails, and other methods of mass media to reach a large number of people to have the biggest impact. 3. A handful of areas in health promotion are likely to garner the majority of health psychologists’ attention in the coming years. List and explain them below: a. Area 1: At-Risk Populations i. Explain: Could be risk of bad outcomes from COVID 19 or being at risk of chronic health conditions. Health psychs can first educate them in their at-risk status and help them cope with this by identifying behaviors that can lower their risk such as eating better or exercising more often, and identify additional risk factors. b. Area 2: Prevention FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W i. Explain: Take advantage of the window of vulnerability in adolescence in order to give them tools such as self control and self efficacy to resist certain health declining behaviors such as smoking, drinking, drug abuse, diet, and eating disorders. Starting earlier and including family should also be used. c. Area 3: Older Adults i. Explain: Implement interventions that are specifically for older adults that include intervention emphasis such as diet, exercise, control of alcohol consumption, and other health habits. d. Area 4: Promote Resilience i. Explain: As it is an important factor in helping people cope, it helps people get through stressful situations. Use focusing on positive factors that reduce morbidity or delay mortality, which also helps people’s ability to attract and maintain social support. Also use the internet to increase intervention for social support. Continue studying spontaneous stress reduction, educate psychological factors that enhance ability to cope, seek out more opportunities for rest and renewal, and increase optimism and self efficacy. e. Area 5: Health Disparities i. Explain: Individual changes alone are not always substantial to improve the health of the overall population. Individual change along with social change is needed. The US is falling behind in life expectancy and infant mortality rates. There is not a lot of government health expenditure in the US. Because of this there is a large SES disaprity, as poor health habits are correlated to low SES. Ethnic differences and SES contribute a lot to the type of care that people receive. African Americans have overall worse health at all ages as well as higher anxiety, depression, hostility, shorter life expectancy, and higher rates of chronic illnesses. 4. Exercise 1: Watch t his video about health disparities. Summarize its contents i 3-5 sentences below: Oftentimes when ethnic minorities go into the doctors, they are assumed to be drug abusers. Dr. Cooper was 17 when the government of Liberia was overthrown and the upper class was victimized, which showed her what it was like to be a part of a minority group. She realized that the patients see saw also suffered from disparities such as lack of money violence, and also suffered from a gap in communication in the medical setting. African Americans have more distrust of FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W doctors, and ethnic minorities often felt disrespected by the doctors who saw them and also felt more rushed in the appointments with white doctors. a. What does this video – and your summary above – add to your understanding of the role of health disparities in determining people’s well-being? i. Doctors that are biased make African Americans or other ethnic minorities feel less respected and less heard. Because of this, why would individuals who are a part of a minority group want to go to the doctors? The work that Dr. Cooper did with the doctors needs to be a standard in healthcare in order to close the gap of health disparities, especially among those who are an ethnic minority. Changes need to be made in order for equal access to health care, such as the Affordable Care Act. Other key areas for growth 1. In addition to focusing on health promotion, health psychologists are likely to place their efforts in three other key places…. a. Area for growth 1: Stress Research i. Explain: There is significant breakthrough between stress, inflammation, and health. There is more to learn about the neurophysiology of stress and how stress exerts adverse effects of health. Social support has been shown to be a buffer for stress as it reduces social isolation, promotes the benefits of social ties and relationships, and alleviates factors that promote toxic social ties and relationships. We can teach how to provide social support both irl and virtually. b. Area for growth 2: Healthcare services i. Explain: There are still a lot of problems in the healthcare system such as the cost of care, it being an inequitable system, and having inappropriate use of services. Health psychologists should aid in the creation of responsible and informed patients by teaching them to advocate for themselves and improve their health literacy. They can also do studies showing the most effective ways that a practitioner can communicate with their patients and vice versa. There should also be health services such as clinics to accommodate those of a low SES. c. Area for growth 3: Management of Serious Illness i. Explain: Psychological effects of chronic illnesses are going to continue to be a major problem. More research should be done on the psychological FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W ii. effects of having a chronic illness as they go through different phases of the illness. Health psychs must continue to do quality of life assessments such as using technology like a questionnaire or a text message. We can also make it known that CAMs are available for chronic illnesses that have been proven to work and address psychological issues. There are also ethical issues around chronic illness and death. There has to be psychological and chronic illness attention when going through the process of illness and dying in patients. Aging of the population also comes with it’s own set of issues. Health psychologists must play a part in setting up better living situations and how to make economic resources available to the older population. They also need to evaluate and monitor care in residential care treatment facilities to combat against maltreatment of older people. Aging and chronic illness also overlap such as chronic pain, blindness, or hearing loss, and must focus on intervention prevention methods. Exercise 2: Watch t his TED Talk by psychologist Sherry Turkle on the perils of technology. Summarize the video in 3-5 sentences: Turkle believed we could use what we learn about ourselves on the online world and use it in the real world, but that it now takes us places we don’t want to go. She found that our phones are so powerful that they change who we are. We use technology to remove ourselves from situations, but also it removes us from ourselves and our capacity for self reflection. Control over attention makes us hide from each other, and only want each other in the amount of time that they want it, and we retouch and perfect everything on technology. d. How does Dr. Turkle’s message relate to the areas of growth for health psychology that we’ve been discussing? i. Although social media can be used for good in interventions across mass media, text, and video calls by providers, it also inhibits our ability to connect and communicate properly, as well as disconnects us from ourselves. How can we properly communicate our needs to a doctor if we have not even connected with ourselves enough to understand symptoms? We also cannot communicate our needs to our providers as well if we are so disconnected from conversations in real life. Trends in health & health psychology 1. The textbook identifies FOUR primary trends in health psychology that will help shape the future of the field. Identify and explain each of these below: a. Trend 1: Research of the Future i. Explain: the future of research is interdisciplinary and in the collaboration of different specialties, methodologies, and fields such as interviews, surveys, or experience sampling methods. For example, we can use FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W types of stressors, stress hormone changes, brain changes in response to stress, and behavior changes within the same people. b. Trend 2: Impact of Technology i. Explain: Technological advances are to blame for the high cost of contemporary medicine. Technology helps in diagnosis and treatment of patients, but many patients are scared of technology and its complexities and costs. In order to reduce a patient’s fear, providers can explain the purpose and inner workings of technology. Using control-enhancing interventions enable the patient to feel more active in their treatment and reduce fear as well. Advances in decision making sciences also help improve health care decision making for providers. c. Trend 3: Comprehensive Intervention i. Explain: We need to coordinate both psychological and medical expertise for things such as pain management programs, hospice care, and rehab programs. Interventions that don’t just focus on one behavior, but those around the person on the community and societal level. Prevention interventions are also used such as youth prevention projects, educational interventions, and social engineering solutions to problems such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and drug abuse rather than programs that focus on health risks that are in place. Although comprehensive interventions are the highest quality of interventions, they are quite expensive. The treatment is effective, but the cost is expensive. ii. What the heck does that pyramid from the slides represent? Explain. 1. An example of a broder intervention model that takes into consideration many characteristics and different levels of intervention based on the need of the individual, where they sit in the population, and risk level. It brings in both illness management and health management. It brings in minimal intervention, moderate intervention, and intensive intervention based on level of risk and illness. d. Trend 4: International health i. Explain: Life expectancy has luckily gone up everywhere. Trends seen in developing countries are increased smoking, decrease in active lifestyle, and increase in the incidence of chronic illness. How do we take the information that we know such as smoking risks and diseases that we have learned from, and apply them to other countries? Integrating FA20 – PSY4005 Nat W cultures is also a must when developing interventions for other countries, as what works in the US may not work in another culture. Poverty, lack of education, and lack of healthcare resources contributes to high incidence of acute infectious diseases, and chronic disability is a major cost in all countries. 2. Exercise 3: Watch t his TED Talk about international mental health. Summarize its message in 3-5 sentences: The life expectancy gap is large for those with mental illness, and suicide is the top of the list of cause of dealth for young people in all countries. Mental illnesses are the leading disabilities in the world and can be damaging to quality of life. The vast majority of these individuals do not receive the treatment or intervention that they need and there is an even greater lack of mental health professionals like psychologists and psychiatrists in developing countries, where there is almost none at all. Over the last decade in Uganda there was 90% recovery rate from depression from the intervention, Pakistan CBT was given to mothers with depression and had a 75% recovery rate, and in Goa psychosocial intervention was given with a 70% recovery rate, compared to about 40% recovery from surrounding villages from the 3 trialed villages. This is due to the intervention being taught and given by less-trained individuals in the developing countries. a. How does the video link with Trend 4 from above? Explain. i. We’ve learned interventions for mental health and overall health that we can use to give to other developing countries that do not have the same resources that we do. If we can create interventionists in other countries, we can create education, prevention, and serve at-risk populations for both mental and physical illnesses. Teaching normal people to become interventionists may be the key to helping the at-risk and disabled populations in developing countries.
