Topic
Effects of environmental and psychosocial risk factors on health outcomes
Instructions
A number of environmental and psychosocial factors such as lack of social support, job control, or socioeconomic status have been implicated as risk factors for poorer health outcomes. In contrast, some other factors seem to have a protective factor for physical and psychological support (e.g., social support and perhaps job control).
Imagine that you have been asked to write a paper and give a short talk to other psychology students in an organization who do not have a background in understanding stress, psychosocial factors and physical and psychological health. In this “paper,” you should discuss the research findings that show the way some of these factors have been shown to be related to greater risk for disease or decreased longevity or others that serve as protective factors. You should provide the empirical backing for your answer (e.g., summarize the research that is relevant to the point you are making) and reference the source. Lastly, discuss in a short paragraph if you find any of these concepts/findings surprising in terms of the effects on physical and psychological health? Why or why not?
Be should be sure to integrate the research findings in your discussion of the concepts. You may also bring in some of the earlier readings to integrate ideas but focus mostly on the reading about the topics of social support, loneliness, and environmental factors. Be sure to include a reference page.
Answer preview
Poor health outcomes in human beings may be linked to some environmental and psychosocial factors. Identification of psychological and social conditions are among the modern advances in elucidating the determinants of health since they influence the mortality and morbidity rate directly through physiological processes and indirectly through behavioral pathways (US), N., (US), I., Woolf & Aron, 2018). Although some people previously believed that some illnesses were caused by the physical states with the little biological basis and others were mainly “physical,” it is now clear that in most cases the distinction is not valid. Most of the psychosomatic infections entail different environmental and genetic determinants, and all health states and infections are influenced to some extent by the psychosocial conditions (Havranek et al. 2015).
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