PSYC 801 Health Psychology: Applications in Healthcare and Public Health

This course integrates health psychology and public health psychology which tends to work primarily at different ends of the prevention continuum. Health Psychology is limited to the ways in which mind/body interfaces cause and resolve illnesses. Focusing primarily on individuals, it uses such concepts as psychoneuroimmunology to explore ways in which emotional and spiritual states have been demonstrated to enhance healing and health. Certain addictive diseases are presented as classic examples of mind-body synergies. Equal importance is given in this course to the role of behavior in precipitating and preventing diseases, including infectious and so-called lifestyle diseases. The course also surveys increasingly recognized opportunities, on multiple ecologies, for behavioral interventions to forestall these infectious and chronic threats to health and well-being.