Robert F. Krueger

Carol D. Ryff

Most health research to date has been pursued within the confines of scientific disciplines that are guided by their own targeted questions and research strategies. Although useful, such inquiries are inherently limited in advancing understanding the interplay of wide-ranging factors that shape human health. The Oxford Handbook of Integrative Health Science embraces an integrative approach that seeks to put together sociodemographic factors (age, gender, race, socioeconomic status) known to contour rates of morbidity and mortality with psychosocial factors (emotion, cognition, personality, well-being, social connections), behavioral factors (health practices) and stress exposures (caregiving responsibilities, divorce, discrimination) also known to influence health. A further overarching theme is to explicate the biological pathways through which these various effects occur. The biopsychosocial leitmotif that inspires this approach demands new kinds of studies wherein wide-ranging assessments across different domains are assembled on large population samples. The MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) national longitudinal study exemplifies such an integrative study, and all findings presented in this collection draw on MIDUS. The way the study evolved, via collaboration of scientists working across disciplinary lines, and its enthusiastic reception from the scientific community are all part of the larger story told. Embedded within such tales are important advances in the identification of key protective or vulnerability factors: these pave the way for practice and policy initiatives seeking to improve the nation's health.

The Oxford Handbook of Integrative Health Science

Burton Singer

This volume brings together, for the first time, inquiries into the size and proximity of social networks and emotion in social relationships to advance understanding of how emotion in significant social relationships influences health. The collection integrates knowledge from those withexpertise in mapping the nature of emotional experience in human relations with those who are linking social ties to health outcomes, and those who explicate underlying neurobiological mechanisms. The book puts forth the idea that full explication of how emotion, social relationships, and healthare woven together demands multidisciplinary inquiry and brings together leading experts from fields of affective science, clinical and social psychology, epidemiology, psychiatry, psychoneuroimmunology, psychoneuroendocrinology, and health to promote the above synthesis.

Emotion, Social Relationships, and Health

Orville Gilbert Brim

Professor of Psychology Carol D Ryff, PhD

Ronald C. Kessler

Professor of Sociology and Program Director of the Survey Research Center Ronald C Kessler

Childhood, adolescence, even the "twilight years" have been extensively researched and documented. But the vast terrain known as midlife—the longest segment of the life course—has remained uncharted. How physically and psychologically healthy are Americans at midlife? And why do some experience greater well-being than others? The MacArthur Foundation addressed these questions head-on by funding a landmark study known as "Midlife in the U.S.," or MIDUS. For the first time in a single study, researchers were able to integrate epidemiological, sociological, and psychological assessments, as well as innovative new measures to evaluate how work and family life influence each other. How Healthy Are We? presents the key findings from the survey in three sections: physical health, quality of life and psychological well-being, and the contexts (family, work) of the midlife. The topics covered by almost forty scholars in a wide variety of fields are vast, including everything from how health and well-being vary with socioeconomic standing, gender, race, or region of the country to how middle-aged people differ from younger or older adults in their emotional experience and quality of life. This health—the study measures not only health-the absence of illness—but also reports on the presence of wellness in middle-aged Americans. The culmination of a decade and a half of research by leading scholars, How Healthy Are We? will dramatically alter the way we think about health in middle age and the factors that influence it. Researchers, policymakers, and others concerned about the quality of midlife in contemporary America will welcome its insights. * Having a good life means having good relationships with others to almost 70% of those surveyed. Less than 40% mentioned their careers. * Reports of disruptive daily stressors vary by age, with young adults and those in midlife experiencing more than those in later adulthood. * Men have higher assessments of their physical and mental health than woman until the age of 60.

Carol D. Ryff

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