KIN 541 Behavioral Medicine
Behavioral medicine is the application of the specific educational, scientific, and professional contributions of the discipline of psychology to the promotion and maintenance of health; the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of illness and disability; the identification of etiologic and diagnostic correlates of health, illness, and related disability; and the analysis and improvement of the healthcare system and health policy. Based on the biopsychosocial model, this course examines the basic behavioral medicine concepts and explores how they can be applied to help people who need to change specific lifestyle behaviors to attain better health. Specific behavioral medicine topics will include stress, diet and supplementation, pain, health-related quality of life, sleep, physical activity, sedentary behavior, smoking tobacco, environmental factors(e.g., noise, pollution, climate), and everyday behaviors (hand washing, alcohol use, wearing a seat belt).