Title: Psychological Well-being and Physical Health: Characterizing Underlying Bio psychosocial Processes
Abstract : The number of older adults is growing rapidly in many countries throu ghout the world. For example\, the number of Canadians aged 65+ is projecte d to increase by over 50% in the next 15 years. The burden of chronic disea se rises swiftly with age\, and although average life expectancies have inc reased\, the number of healthy years lost to disability has increased as we ll. In combination\, these age-related forces are projected to result in wo rse population health and increasing healthcare costs. Thus\, identifying f actors that contribute to healthy aging is vital for population health and containing rising healthcare costs. Most psychological\, biomedical\, and p ublic health efforts have focused on reducing harmful risk factors (e.g.\, depression)\, and this approach has contributed greatly to prevention and t reatment programs. However\, expanding the focus to include upstream dimens ions of psychological well-being (e.g.\, sense of purpose in life\, optimis m) may help inform the comprehensive\, multidisciplinary\, and multi-level response efforts needed to maximize healthy aging. A mounting body of evide nce links higher psychological well-being with reduced risk of chronic dise ases\, yet the mechanisms underlying these association are unclear. Without this understanding\, a promising avenue of intervention cannot progress be cause we are unable to establish that psychological well-being plays a caus al role in reducing risk of chronic conditions\, or understand how interven ing on psychological well-being might alter physical health outcomes. In th is talk\, I will describe a theoretical model for how psychological well-be ing may influence our physical health. I will then discuss results from a s eries of studies evaluating associations between psychological well-being a nd chronic conditions\, and mechanistic biopsychosocial processes underlyin g these associations (e.g.\, use of preventive healthcare services and DNA methylation). I will end with a discussion of four lines of future research . Ultimately\, my work aims to move the field forward by providing new dire ctions for building a science of resilience and providing new targets for p reventive and therapeutic interventions.
LOCATION:Douglas Kenny Building\, Suedfeld Lounge\, Room 2510 GEO:49.263719;-123.254803 URL;VALUE=URI:https://psych.ubc.ca/events/event/invited-talk-eric-kim-harva rd-health-area/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://psych.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/11/Mental_Physical_Health.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20181104T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR