Current issues and new directions in psychology and health: Culture and health psychology. Why health psychologists should care about culture

Abstract

Over the few past decades, technical advances such as the Internet coupled with increased migration have exposed the average individual to an unprecedented level of diverse information about other people, environments and customs. These developments present particular challenges for health psychological research. In this commentary, we argue that current theorising and thinking in health psychology is outpaced by societal, system and individual changes and those behavioural scientists need to incorporate cultural variables in theory and intervention research more centrally than it is currently done. This editorial was inspired by discussions among members of the SYNERGY workshop 2007 ‘Culture, health, and illness representations’ conducted in conjunction with the annual meeting of the European Health Psychology conference.