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Epidemiology Extra Blog

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16 views5 pages

Epidemiology Extra Blog

Uploaded by

mikailkurucu125
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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EPIDEMIOLOGY IN HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH

Epidemiology, the analysis of health and disease patterns in populations, provides

immense value for health psychology. Epidemiology is a useful tool that researchers of health

psychology can apply so as to augment their comprehension of behavioral patterns,

prevention of diseases, and health consequences. This post specifically looks at how health

psychology is underpinned by epidemiology research, while demystifying key ideas including

mortality, morbidity, incidence, prevalence, and life expectancy. It also assesses the strengths

and limitations in epidemiologic research in a critical manner.

Key Concepts in Epidemiology

Mortality used in this context is the number of people that died within a determined

period in the population being considered. The relevance of this measure cannot be over-

emphasized in health psychology because it brings out the relationship between psychological

factors and mortality. For example, anxiety and depression, conditions that are often linked

with chronic stress, raise the mortality probability (Lepine & Briley, 2011). Thus, health

psychologists may incorporate mortality data to further develop and implement preventive

treatment methods for psychological factors leading to premature death.

Morbidity in general is defined as the rate of diseases and conditions affecting a

population at different stages of disease. Understanding morbidity rates will enhance the

ability of health psychologists to identify psychological disorders and their links with health.

For instance, high morbidity ratios of anxiety and depression imply that there is a need for

approaches to be taken towards managing symptoms and physical effects of these disorders

(Walker et al., 2014).

Incidence is the actual occurrence, or how many new cases of a disease or condition

there are in a specific population in a given period. This idea is relevant when attempting to
notice the beginning of new significant health trends and analyze the development of mental

disorders. Epidemiological studies with the occurrences of mental health disorders assist

health psychologists observe the increases of such disorders and recommend the measures of

preventing such incidence (Kessler et al., 2005).

Prevalence indicates the total number of cases of a disease or condition in a population

at a given time. Prevalence data helps health psychologists understand the burden of

psychological disorders in different populations.

Life expectancy is defined as the average times people in a given society can expect to

live from birth. This measure is affected by several parameters, such as psychological well-

being. Mental health and life expectancy are of direct relevance to health psychology; hence,

understanding the relationship between the two would prove to be beneficial for research

purposes. For example, well-being has been proven to extend life span, underlining the need

for mental health behaviors (Chida & Steptoe, 2008).

Strengths and Limitations of Epidemiological Research

Mainly conducted on large population groups, epidemiological research is capable of

producing valid data that can inform us on the trends and correlation of health and diseases.

This is an advantage to health psychology since it makes it possible to generalize conclusions

and formulate generic approaches. In addition, epidemiology is useful in telling the causes

and ways of preventing or avoiding diseases and other health complications. It thus becomes

apparent that such knowledge enables the health psychologists frame effective prevention

strategies to counter the risk factors related to psychological and/or physical health

complications (Marmot et al., 2008). They can be used to make policies and intervention

programs by utilizing epidemiological data, research, and evidence. Health psychologists can
leverage this information, demand for mental health programs, and ensure that programs

encourage the inclusion of psychological aspects in public health (McMichael 1999).

A cross-sectional approach inherent in epidemiological surveys defines relationships

between factors more often in terms of probability associations rather than causal ones. This

may pose a challenge to the extent to which psychological factors are responsible for

particular health results. Population studies are prone to confounding that interfere with the

studied factors and distorts their relationship. Such variables must be taken into consideration

by health psychologists in their analysis to guarantee producing correct conclusions

(Rothman, 2002). Checkoway and colleagues (2004) explain that health psychologists need to

assess the credibility of the data sources and the methodological approaches utilized in

epidemiologic research in order to guarantee that the results obtained are dependable.

In conclusion, health psychology research can greatly benefit from the huge amount of

information that epidemiology offers. Health psychologists can learn more about the

connections between psychological variables and health outcomes by grasping fundamental

ideas like mortality, morbidity, incidence, prevalence, and life expectancy. Epidemiological

research has limitations in addition to its strengths.


REFERENCES

Checkoway, H., Pearce, N. E., & Kriebel, D. (2004). Research methods in

occupational epidemiology (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chida, Y., & Steptoe, A. (2008). Positive psychological well-being and mortality: A

quantitative review of prospective observational studies. Psychosomatic Medicine, 70(7), 741-

756. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e31818105ba

Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E.

(2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the

National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(6), 593-602.

https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.62.6.593

Lepine, J. P., & Briley, M. (2011). The increasing burden of depression.

Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 7(Suppl 1), 3-7.

https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S19617

Marmot, M., Friel, S., Bell, R., Houweling, T. A., & Taylor, S. (2008). Closing the gap

in a generation: Health equity through action on the social determinants of health. The Lancet,

372(9650), 1661-1669. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61690-6

McMichael, A. J. (1999). Prisoners of the Proximate: Loosening the constraints on

epidemiology in an age of change. American Journal of Epidemiology, 149(10), 887-897.

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009752

Rothman, K. J. (2002). Epidemiology: An introduction. Oxford University Press.

Walker, E. R., McGee, R. E., & Druss, B. G. (2014). Mortality in mental disorders and

global disease burden implications: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry,

72(4), 334-341. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.2502

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