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Behavioral Medicine Fact Sheet
- Health and Behavior
- Key Strategies for Successful Behavior Change
- About Behavioral Medicine
- New Areas in Development
- Areas of Behavioral Medicine
- Settings for Research and Practice
- Behavioral Interventions can Affect Health
- Sources of Funding for Research
- For More Information
Health and Behavior
Changes in behavior and lifestyle can improve health, prevent illness, and reduce symptoms of illness. More than twenty-five years of research, clinical practice, and community-based interventions in the field of behavioral medicine have shown that behavioral changes can help people feel better physically and emotionally, improve their health status, increase their self-care skills, and improve their ability to live with chronic illness. Behavioral interventions also can improve the effectiveness of medical interventions, can help to reduce overutilization of the health care system, and can reduce the overall costs of care.
About Behavioral Medicine
Behavioral medicine is the multidisciplinary field concerned with the behavioral and social aspects of medical conditions. Consumers and a wide variety of health professionals are involved in behavioral medicine research and practice, including cardiologists, counselors, epidemiologists, exercise physiologists, family physicians, health educators, internists, nurses, nutritionists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Behavioral medicine takes a life-span approach to health and health care, working with children, teens, adults, and seniors individually and in groups, and working with racially and ethnically diverse communities in the United States and abroad.
Some Areas of Behavioral Medicine Research and Intervention
Adolescent Health, Aging, Anxiety, Arthritis, Asthma, Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease (heart disease, hypertension, stroke), Children's Health, Chronic Pain, Cystic Fibrosis, Depression, Diabetes, Disease-Related Pain, Eating Disorders, Environmental Health, Headaches, HIV/AIDS, Incontinence, Insomnia, Low Back Pain, Minority Health, Myofascial Pain, Obesity, Public Health, Pulmonary Disease, Quality of Life, Rehabilitation, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Social Support, Sports Medicine, Substance Abuse (alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs), Women's Health.
Research Shows That Behavioral Interventions Can Affect Health
Some Examples:
Prevent disease onset; Lower blood pressure; Lower serum cholesterol; Reduce
body fat; Reverse atherosclerosis; Decrease pain; Reduce surgical complications;
Decrease complications of pregnancy; Enhance immune response; Increase relaxation;
Increase functional capacity; Improve sleep; Improve productivity at work
and school; Improve strength, endurance, and mobility; Improve quality of
life.
Some Key Strategies for Successful Behavior Change
Lifestyle Changes Improve nutrition, increase physical activity, stop smoking, use medications appropriately, practice safer sex, prevent and reduce alcohol and drug abuse
Training Coping, relaxation, self-monitoring, stress management, time management, pain management, problem-solving, communication skills, time management, priority-setting
Social Support Group education, caretaker support and training, health counseling, community-based sports events
New Areas in Development
Integrating behavioral medicine strategies into primary care and managed care; Increasing public awareness of behavioral interventions; Including effective behavioral interventions in development of clinical practice guidelines; Increasing use of information technology for behavioral interventions; Improving integration of research and practice
Settings for Research and Practice
Athletic organizations, Community-based organizations and groups, Health clubs and fitness centers, Health maintenance organizations, Hospitals, Long-term care, Office-based private practice, Outpatient clinics, Rehabilitation clinics, Religious organizations and groups, Senior centers, Schools and universities, Wellness centers, Worksites
Sources of Funding for Research
Federal: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Institutes of Health (NHLBI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NICHD, NIDR, NIDDK, NIDA, NINDS, NINR); Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Private: Carnegie Foundation; Annie E. Casey Foundation; Fetzer Institute; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For More Information
- Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
- Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP)
- Center for the Advancement of Health
Prepared by M. Edmunds and Members of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, March 1998
© Copyright 2007 Society of Behavioral Medicine. All Rights Reserved.
Society of Behavioral Medicine
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Tel: 414-918-3156
Fax: 414-276-3349
For more information, please email us at info@sbm.org