Behavioral Medicine

Behavioral Medicine, field of scientific research concerned with the effects of behavior on physical health and illness. Developed in the 1970s, it focuses on the occurrence, prevention, and control of physical disorders that are caused or aggravated by social conditions, behavior, thought, and emotions. Its practitioners emphasize the responsibility of people for their own health and are encouraged to see each patient as a whole person rather than as a collection of physical, mental, and social parts.

Those individuals in the field of behavioral medicine include specialists in psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, epidemiology, biostatistics, psychiatry, biology, and medicine. Typically, they do research into how stress produces disease, how placebos work, how pain can be regulated, and how patients can be encouraged to comply with medical advice. Among the disorders of greatest concern to scientists in behavioral medicine are high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and alcohol and drug abuse.