Welcome to Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice (Seventh Edition). This textbook provides an in-depth introduction to the growing field of health psychology. It is designed for all readers wishing to augment their knowledge about psychology and health, especially undergraduates and postgraduates taking courses in health psychology, medicine, nursing, public health, and other subjects allied to medicine and health care. The authors strive to present a balanced and up-to-date view of the field and its theories, research and applications. We aim to present the core ideas, theories and studies within health psychology and to examine the underlying theoretical assumptions and critically analyse methods, evidence and conclusions. This edition updates all content from previous editions and adds significant, new material and core topics. All central domains and topics relevant to health psychology are included. A key feature of this textbook is the equal priority given to biological, social and psychological determinants of health, illness and health care. The authors affirm that both social embeddedness and psychological influences are equally important to health and illness as genes and ‘germs’, an inescapable reality as we continue to navigate the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic. We attempt to locate health psychology fully within its global, social, political, spiritual and biological contexts. We attempt to provide a snapshot of the ‘bigger picture’using a wide-angle lens, as well as giving detailed, critical analyses of the ‘nitty-gritty’of theory, research and practice. This textbook introduces readers to the major foundations and theoretical approaches to health psychology, contemporary research on core topics, and how theory and evidence is being applied in practice. The authorship is made stronger and richer by three new co-authors, Rachel Annunziato, Abigail Locke and Gareth Treharne. This seventh edition includes new chapters on ‘Preventing the Spread of Disease: The COVID-19 Pandemic’,‘Pregnancy, Parenting and Health’and ‘Gender Affirmative Health Care’.

Health psychology developed initially as a formalised sub-discipline of Psychology in the 1970s and 1980s. Over half a century, the growth of interest in this subject has been truly amazing. The primary focus has been theories and models about social-cognitive processes concerned with health beliefs and behaviours. The individualistic, social-cognitive approach to health psychology has yielded thousands of research publications of a mainly empirical nature to study issues, test theories and models about the causes of health behaviour change and to investigate interventions. Similar to Psychology more generally, the primary focus of mainstream health psychology has been the behaviour, beliefs and experiences of individuals. The mainstream ideology of the ‘autonomous individual’is a concept of a person with the agency to choose freely and with personal responsibility for their health. This ideology holds that each individual is motivated by self-interest to elevate their health and to avert illness and an early death by adopting a ‘lifestyle’and by making changes of behaviour. This ‘do-or-die’ethic is described as ‘making informed choices’ and ‘being responsible consumers’. The ideology of neoliberalism dominates the socio-political environment, including health psychology and health care. Yet, this ideology runs counter to the fact that, far from being self-obsessed narcissists, the majority of humans are prosocial beings who care for kith and kin,