Acute Disorders

Short-term illnesses, often a result of a viral or bacterial invader and usually amendable to cure.

Biomedical Model

Maintains that all illness can be explained on the basis of aberrant somatic bodily processes, such as biochemical imbalances or neurophysiology abnormalities.

Biopsychosocial Model

The idea that the mind and body together determine health and illness logically implies a model for studying these issues.

Chronic Illnesses

Slowly developing diseases with which people live for many years and that typically cannot be cured but rather are managed by patient and health care providers.

Conversion Hysteria

Specific unconscious conflicts can produce physical disturbances that symbolize repressed psychological conflicts.

Correlational Research

The health psychologist measures whether changes in one variable corresponds with changes in another variable.

Epidemiology

The study of the frequency, distribution, and causes of infectious and noninfectious diseases in a population.

Etiology

Refers to the origins or causes of illness.

Evidence-Based Medicine

Medical and psychological interventions go through rigorous testing and evaluation of their benefits, before they become a standard of care.

Experiment

A researcher creates two or more conditions that differ from each other in exact and predetermined ways.

Health

A complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Health Psychology

An exciting and relatively new field devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill.

Longitudinal Research

The same people are observed at multiple points in time.

Meta-Analysis

Combines results from different studies to identify how strong the evidence is for particular research findings.

Morbidity

Refers to the number of cases of a disease that exists at some given point in time.

Mortality

Refers to the number of deaths due to particular causes.

Prospective Research

Looks forward in time to see how a group of people change, or how a relationship between two variables changes over time.

Psychosomatic Medicine

Offers profiles of particular disorders believed to be psychosomatic in origin, that is, caused by emotional conflicts.

Randomized Clinical Trials

Experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments or interventions over time.

Retrospective Designs

Look backward in time in an attempt to reconstruct the conditions that led to a current situation.

Theory

A set of analytic statements that explain a set of phenomena, such as why people practice poor health behaviors.

Wellness

Optimum state of health.