Technological and Medical Advances: Implications for Health Psychology.

Abstract

Behavioral telehealth, health informatics, organ and tissue transplantation, and genetics are among the areas that have been affected by advances in technology and medicine. These areas illustrate the opportunities and the challenges that new developments can pose to health psychologists. Each area is discussed with respect to implications for practice, research, public policy, and education and training: recommendations are provided.

Consideration of Insulin Pumps or Continuous Glucose Monitors by Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes and Their Parents

“…41,42 Adolescents with T1D are less likely to enjoy the benefits of improved blood glucose control and quality of life through use of these technologies compared to adults with diabetes. [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] This may be due to behavioral impediments such as social and body image concerns, treatment adherence, and inadequate diabetes problem solving. [51][52][53] One mechanism affecting adolescents' lesser benefit from use of these devices may be the quality of initial decisions to adopt them.…”

An Empirical Test of the Materialist Framework for Understanding the General Population's Reaction to Nonpersonalized Genetic Health Messages

“…Although several studies have examined public responses to preventative testing (Etchegary et al, 2009;Honda, 2003;Ulricha et al, 1998), scarce research has examined the effect of mass media genetic health messages and a closer examination of how these messages affect behavior change is thus clearly warranted (Saab et al, 2004).…”

Genetic health messages in the mass media: Do the general public perceive non‐personalized genetic health message as personally relevant?

“…The effect of such communications about genetics has been heavily debated with opponents arguing that media coverage of genetics may lead to beliefs of genetic determinism (e.g., Katz Rothman, 1998) while proponents argue that beliefs about genetic causation have remained rather consistent despite massive media attention (e.g., Condit et al , 2009). Unfortunately, there is scarce empirical research into the effects of mass media health messages about genetics on persuasion and precautionary action (Saab et al , 2004). The little evidence that is available suggests that communicating the existence of genetic risk factors to the general public (cf.…”