Preventing Illness in Health Psychology

Psychologists work towards promoting health through behavioral change, as mentioned above, but they
prevent illness in other ways as well. Practitioners emphasize education as a large part of illness prevention,
as many people do not recognize the risk to illness present in their lives. Or they are unable to implement
the knowledge that they have owing to the pressures of their everyday existence. A common example of this
is anti-smoking campaigns. Those least able to afford tobacco products consume them the most. It is a
method for controlling emotional states, the daily experiences of stress that characterize the lives of
deprived and vulnerable people. Health psychologists also aim at educating health professionals like
physicians and nurses in communicating with patients. They communicate in a way that highlights the
psychosocial barriers to understanding and implementing effective strategies for reducing risk factors and
making behavior changes that will help them to develop appropriate means for communicating information
relevant to diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.