Methods and Applications
The proportion of older persons in the Western society is growing gradually, which stresses the importance of studying the effects of behavioral factors on health during aging. During aging, changes in behavioral factors (social function, psychological function, and lifestyle behaviors) occur and some aging-specific circumstances (e.g., retirement, widowhood) arise. Although the health effects of...
Evidence has accrued over the past half century clearly documenting the importance of psychosocial factors on health, well-being, and disease risk. This evidence has accumulated through the scientific contributions of multiple disciplines using a variety of study designs. The goal of this chapter is to present pertinent information regarding the assessment of psychosocial factors in population-based...
Although most people would agree that lower socio-economic position (SEP) is associated with poorer health, there remain key debates over the measurement SEP, the mechanisms that explain this association with health, and the policy responses to such inequalities in health. The WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health addressed many of these issues. Measures of SEP should ideally reflect...
Race/ethnic disparities in health exhibit similar and consistent patterns across time and geography in industrialized countries. Across countries such as the USA, the UK, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia the health of non-whites is poorer than that of whites for multiple markers of health status and disease states. Such disparities in health violate norms of equal opportunity and systematically...
There are a number of processes through which neighborhood environments may relate to behaviors and health outcomes, and a number of studies have empirically examined neighborhood health effects. This chapter highlights the major theoretical and methodological challenges that must be overcome to improve our understanding of how and why neighborhoods matter for health. We focus on issues regarding:...
Clear and effective communication is a fundamental component of quality healthcare. Beginning with the most basic clinical encounter, healthcare providers seek to elicit information, answer questions, explain diagnoses, and offer instructions for possible medical or behavioral intervention. Patients and families, in turn, are expected to be able to provide an accurate account of behaviors or symptoms...
Many developed countries have begun to focus on the need to prevent mortality from non-communicable diseases such as cancer. One of the cornerstones of this effort has been the use of screening to identify individuals with pre-symptomatic disease, so that treatment can be initiated at an early stage and therefore be more successful. Focusing on the use of screening in cancer control, this chapter...
Behavior is increasingly recognized as the key element in improving the health of individuals and populations. Behavioral factors underlie most of the diseases and injuries that lead to premature death and morbidity. Recent decades have produced dramatic increases in behaviorally related academic research and a growing body of evidence for effective interventions. However, significant shortfall exists...
Recent years have witnessed an increasing awareness of the importance of genetic factors in behavioral medicine. This chapter will summarize the biometrical principles underlying genetic variation in biological and behavioral traits. It will show how studies in genetically related subjects, including twins, can be used to estimate the relative contribution of environmental and genetic variation to...
In contrast with rare Mendelian (single-gene) diseases, the success rate of identification of genes for complex traits and diseases through positional cloning (i.e., fine-mapping of linkage peaks) has been disappointingly low. As a consequence, gene finding efforts for complex traits have increasingly come to rely on association approaches. The conduct of association studies has been greatly facilitated...
Interest in genetics is growing rapidly in the behavioral medicine community. However, much of the work to date has focused on whether variations in DNA sequence relate to biobehavioral processes and outcomes, and relatively little attention had been paid to functional genomics (differential RNA expression). In this chapter we argue that functional genomic approaches have much to offer our field as...
In this chapter, we review two recent developments in behavioral genetics that bear on the determinants and sequelae of psychological stress. The first addresses genetic influences on exposure to environmental stressors (gene–stress correlation), and the second, the moderation of genetic effects on behavioral and biological phenotypes by stress-related environmental variation (gene–stress interaction)...
Tobacco use is the single greatest cause of premature and preventable death in the United States. Genetic factors play a key role in the acquisition of smoking among adolescents and transition to nicotine dependence in adulthood, as well as response to standard smoking cessation therapies. Twin studies demonstrate high heritability for smoking initiation, nicotine dependence, and quitting success...
Obesity and diabetes have become a global epidemic causing new clinical and public health challenges worldwide. Both conditions are heritable and arise from the combined effects of and interactions between multiple genes and lifestyle factors, such as diet and physical activity. For the last 15 years, candidate gene and genome-wide linkage studies have been the two main genetic epidemiological approaches...
The importance of physical activity and healthy eating for preventing a range of adverse health outcomes, including cardiovascular diseases, certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and obesity, has been well documented. However, in developed countries a significant proportion of the population fail to meet physical activity and healthy eating recommendations. These complex behaviors are influenced by a...
This chapter summarizes work on the cognitive determinants of health behavior. The cognitive determinants most strongly and consistently associated with behavior are intentions, self-efficacy, and outcome expectancies. A number of models integrating various cognitive determinants of health behavior have been developed and applied in this area. These importantly include the Health Belief Model, Protection...
It is well established that physical activity is associated with significant physical and mental health benefits including increased longevity. These data have prompted an increased interest in promoting physical activity, which requires accurate and objective quantification of activity. The main objectives of this chapter are to (a) review the epidemiologic evidence documenting the beneficial health...