Health Issues and Psychological Dispositions

Some Highlights and Explanations

Abstract

Human beings are complex systems and their illness may be caused by a multitude of factors, as just not a single factor such as a virus or bacterium. Health has to be seen not only from the medical model but must include the significant and integral aspects of human psychology. We cannot treat the mind and body as two entities. There is an assumption that 50 percent of mortality from the ten leading causes of death can be ascribed to behaviour. If this is so, then behaviour and lifestyle have a potentially major effect on longevity. Health psychology attempts to move away from a simple linear model of health and examines the combination of factors involved in illness – biological (e.g. a virus), psychological (e.g. behaviours, beliefs) and social (e.g. employment, socio-economic status, etc.). The biopsychosocial model of health and illness that was developed by Engel (1977, 1980) asserts and establishes this understanding.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3873979