Why the book "More than Medicine: the Broken Promise of American Health" is important to the future of behavioral medicine, health psychology, and public health.

Abstract

In his book, "More than Medicine: The Broken Promise of American Health," Robert Kaplan brings together extensive data to make the case that healthcare priorities in the USA need to place greater emphasis on behavioral, social and environmental determinants of health. Kaplan argues that the effect sizes for health outcomes resulting from environmental exposures, stress, and socioeconomic status are all much larger than are many traditional biological risk factors. There are discrepancies between estimates of how much the National Institutes of Health spends on behavioral and social sciences research, but an independent evaluation suggests it is <5% of the entire budget. Addressing this neglect requires advocacy and bringing together of like-minded organizations to promote more funding for behavioral interventions, health promotion and public health policies to address important contextual factors such as poverty, lack of education, and poor environmental conditions. Importantly, Kaplan argues that several metrics to integrate life expectancy and quality of life have been proposed and allow healthcare providers to prioritize the value of health over the volume of healthcare delivered. Although standards exist, there are still a limited number of studies on the cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of behavioral and public health interventions.