Psychological Models of Health

Abstract

Health psychology is the study of how beliefs, values, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and other psychosocial factors impact health behaviors, and is a relatively new field. Recent decades have seen rapid growth of the South Asian American population and dramatic increases in published psychological research on South Asian Americans. Applying existing health psychology models to the South Asian American population will improve understanding of the connection between health beliefs and health behaviors for this growing ethnic minority. A key issue in the application of psychological frameworks and interventions to any cultural population is the sociocultural context in which the psychological frameworks were developed. This chapter explores this issue by first examining established psychological models of health and their application to South Asian Americans, and then discusses psychological processes and practices used in intervention that are unique and indigenous to this ethnic population. Health beliefs may also be influenced by an individual's family (e.g., familial behavior, familial expectations, traditions, teachings) and the development of health perceptions through socialization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)