Psychology 2035A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Coronary Circulation, Type A And Type B Personality Theory, Cardiovascular Disease
Document Summary
People"s health is now more likely to be compromised by chronic diseases (ones that develop over many years) rather than contagious diseases. Lifestyle and stress play a much larger role in the development of chronic diseases than they do in contagious ones. Chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer, stroke) account for 60% of all deaths in the us. Psychological and social factors also contribute to many other less serious illnesses such as headaches, backaches, skin disorders, asthma, and ulcers. These new shifting patterns of disease and findings about the influence of stress relating to physical illness has us moving away from the previously thought purely biological model of disease. The biopsychosocial model holds that physical illness is caused by a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors. Health psychology which emerged in the late 70s is concerned with how psychosocial factors relate to the promotion and maintenance of health and with the causation, prevention, and treatment of illness.