Abstract
The emphasis in health psychology is to persuade people using diverse approaches to embrace health promotion, maintenance, and illness prevention. Health psychology studies how biological, psychological, and social factors influence people's attitudes toward their health. This chapter aims to investigate potential contributory relationships between bio-psychosocial factors and population health. The book delves into the bio-psychosocial model, which can assist individuals in developing and maintaining healthy lifestyles in order to promote good health and prevent illness. It endeavours to accelerate the integration of biopsychosocial model in public health systems and healthcare facilities in the context of biological, psychological, and social factors to promote better health and prevent illnesses at a population level. A desk research was adopted to come with relevant literature at the same time adhering to the ethics code. The BPS model is recommended for its robust holistic focus on the person rather than just their infirmity.
TopBackground
Public health is largely assumed to be concerned with populace health instead of personal health, and takes a populace health tactic that recognises behavioural, genetic and socioeconomic issues that influence health and well-being (Levesque, Bergeron & Roy, 2013). There has been a noticeable shift towards understanding health from a holistic standpoint of the health of the public contributing to population health (Scutchfield & Ingram, 2013). In 1977 George Engel and John Romano created the BPS aiming to holistically shed light on human health and illness (Engel, 1977: Frankel, Quill & McDaniel, 2003). Engel (1977) proposed that the biomedical model presumed that every incidence of disease was a result of a divergence of biological molecules inside a person’s body. As the biomedical model suggests, an individual who becomes ill but has regular laboratory results is considered healthy, whereas an individual who feels well but exhibits abnormal laboratory results is unhealthy.
In trying to comprehend an individual's medical ailment, illness, or behaviour, the biomedical model emphasises the biological factors while eliminating psychological and social features as pertinent factors (Bolton & Gillett, 2019; Derek & Grant, 2019). Persons are viewed as inactive agents of their well-being in the biomedical model, with minimum or no personal accountability for the existence of, or capability to modify the behavior (Derek & Grant, 2019). Notwithstanding their significance, illness models are seldom deliberated on or described explicitly. The frequently decried but yet prevalent biomedical models that emanate from Virchow's deduction of the twentieth century implied that every disease is triggered by cellular abnormalities (Bolton & Gillett, 2019). Clearly, the biomedical model is applicable for numerous disease-based infections, has instinctive influence, and is supported by a surplus of biological conclusions.
Nevertheless, by adopting reductionism, the biomedical models of ailment bring together numerous tightly associated belief sets which are summed up as follows:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Public Health: A field of science that prevents disease, prolongs life and promotes health through prevention and intervention health measures at individual, community, society and general public levels.
Emotional Health: Refers to one’s ability to cope with life events and manage emotions.
Palliative Care: A multidisciplinary caregiving approach that aims to enhance quality of life and mitigate the suffering of individual/s with terminal illness.
Health Psychology: A public health specialty that focuses on how biological, psychological, and social factors influence health and illness.
Social Support: The psychological and material resources provided by social network such as close family members, friends, and significant others to an individual or group of people to help them cope from stress and other social issues facing them.
Biopsychosocial Model: A model that emphasizes the interconnections of biological, psychological, and social factors leading to a health status.
Psychosocial Support: Tangible and intangible resources provided to an individual or group of people to address both their psychological and social needs with an effort to promote mental health, wellbeing and strengthen resilience.
Pain Management: A medical approach that deals with prevention, diagnosis and treatment of pain.
Mental Health: This includes one’s psychological, emotional, and social wellbeing which affect how an individual think, feels and acts.