Multimorbidity in health psychology and behavioral medicine

Abstract

This special issue highlights the unique potential that health psychology-behavioral medicine has to dramatically contribute to understanding, prevention, and control of the growing prevalence of multimorbidity (i.e., concurrent prevalence of more than 1 chronic health disease or condition in an individual). The 9 articles published here include 8 full, peer-reviewed articles and an invited commentary. Topics include relevance, measurement, mechanisms, and interventions for multimorbidity. Some articles survey relevant empirical literature, detail the representation of multimorbidity in behavioral intervention trials, or present new empirical data, whereas others present guidelines and system-level proposals to improve health care for patients with multiple health conditions. These articles offer proposals, challenges, and future directions for which health psychology-behavioral medicine is admirably suited to contribute to understanding multimorbidity and improving public health.