The Comprehensive Handbook of Behavioral Medicine: Volume 1: Systems Intervention

Many of the greatest strides in medical care have neither been glamorous nor made the front page of The New York Times. They have been simple measures such as sanitation, immunization, and provision of clean, whole­ some food. And even more glamorous medical breakthroughs and tech­ niques like heart transplants are often last-ditch responses to largely preventable medical problems that required a lifetime to develop. Chang­ ing those life styles which may cause, worsen, or exacerbate disease and uti­ lizing current medical knowledge may be the most important strides medicine will make in the next few decades. To meet this challenge, tech­ niques have already been developed to change eating and nutritional pat­ terns that may lead to obesity and heart disease. In addition, interventions are being developed for a wide variety of medical problems. Many of these techniques are based on behavioral principles. Several years ago, one of the editors of this book gave a behavioral medi­ cine seminar for psychiatry residents concerning behavioral principles and their application to medicine. As the seminar developed, it became evident that many of the important articles on the subject were scattered through­ out a wide body of literature, which encompassed a variety of disciplines and journals. No single source was available to provide the state of the art of this emerging field. This book was spawned, in part, as an attempt to overcome this deficit.