Subject Area and Emergence of Health Psychology

By Prof. Dr. Ralf Schwarzer

Definition and Scope

Over the past decades, health psychology has established itself both internationally and in Germany as an integrative discipline within the field of psychology. Its primary focus lies in behavior, cognition, emotion, and motivation in relation to health, illness, health risks and resources, preventive measures, and health promotion. In terms of application, there is overlap with theories and intervention strategies derived from educational psychology, clinical psychology, and behavioral medicine. A key difference from these applied subfields is that health psychology is particularly rooted in psychological foundations, especially those from social psychology.

To delineate the field and highlight its unique characteristics, the following section briefly outlines its relationship to behavioral medicine and public health.

Behavioral medicine is characterized by its interdisciplinary orientation, covering a broad range of topics including the study of disease causes, prevention, and treatment—often drawing on approaches from clinical behavior therapy.

Public health is generally defined as an interdisciplinary science and practice aimed at preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting mental and physical well-being through population-level measures. It integrates expertise from various disciplines such as epidemiology, sociology, social medicine, economics, health services research, health systems research, political science, psychology, education, data science, anthropology, demography, and more.

In contrast to behavioral medicine and public health, health psychology positions itself as a distinct subfield within psychology that focuses specifically on the origins and prevention of health disorders, risk factors, health promotion, and the development of personal resources. Health psychology draws on insights from other psychological subfields—primarily foundational ones—and places particular emphasis on protective factors for health.

The Emergence of the Discipline

Health psychology began its international development in the 1970s and has since become a well-established academic field. In Germany, a major milestone was the introduction of health psychology as an elective subject at Freie Universität Berlin in 1988, which laid the foundation for its curricular development in the country.

Founding of Professional Societies and Journals

Within the American Psychological Association (APA), a Division of Health Psychology was founded in 1978, which now has several thousand members. At many U.S. universities, health psychology is now a standard subject within psychology departments—often in combination with other subfields (e.g., "Social and Health Psychology").

The International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP) established its Health Psychology division in 1986.

That same year, the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS) was founded.

The German Psychological Society (DGPs) set up its Health Psychology division in 1992, and its first conference took place in Berlin in 1993.

Since 1993, the journal Zeitschrift für Gesundheitspsychologie has been published by Hogrefe. In 2017, it was renamed the European Journal of Health Psychology, adopting English as its publication language. Other English-language journals in the field include Health Psychology (since 1982), Psychology and Health (since 1987), The Health Psychologist newsletter (since 1994), Journal of Health Psychology (since 1996), Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (since 1996), British Journal of Health Psychology (since 1996), and Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being (since 2008).

 

References

Schwarzer, R. (1997). Gesundheitspsychologie: Ein Lehrbuch (2. überarb. und erw. Auflage). Hogrefe.

Schwarzer, R. (2004). Psychologie des Gesundheitsverhaltens. Einführung in die Gesundheitspsychologie (3. überarb. Auflage). Hogrefe.

Schwarzer, R. (2017, August 22-25). Geschichte der Gesundheitspsychologie [Keynote presentation]. 13. Kongress der Fachgruppe Gesundheitspsychologie, Siegen, Germany.

Last updated July 2025