Health professionals are increasingly dealing with chronic illness, aging and the problems of living with disability. All these areas have major health psychology components.
There is now an increased recognition that health services need to pay more attention to the psychological aspects of medical problems in order to improve health care interactions.

The University of Auckland is one of the first universities worldwide to offer a practitioner qualification in Health Psychology, with excellent facilities and resources for teaching and research. The Medical and Health Sciences Campus is in contact with medical institutions throughout the region. These relationships provide ready access to clinical populations of special interest to students of Health Psychology.

You can study Health Psychology in a Master of Health Psychology, Postgraduate Diploma in Health Psychology or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) – Medical and Health Sciences.

You will gain understanding in areas such as:

• Coping with illness and chronic disease
• Promoting healthy behaviours
• Psychological influences on the development of disease states
• Improving adjustment in healthcare settings
• Patient-practitioner communication
• Adherence to treatment
• Determinants of health-related behaviours (diet, exercise etc)
• The ways in which individuals make sense of and react to health screening, symptoms and illness

There are opportunities to undertake doctoral studies in many of the areas of expertise within the department. Some of our research interests/projects include:

• Coping with illness and chronic disease
• Psychological influences on the development of disease states
• Improving adjustment in healthcare settings
• Patient-practitioner communication
• Adherence to treatment
• Determinants of health-related behaviours
• Understanding how individuals make sense of and react to health screening, symptoms and illness
• Technology and health, including healthcare apps and robotics
• Emotions and health
• Placebo and nocebo effects
• Psychoneuroimmunology
• Compassion in medicine
• Pain
• Mindfulness and other psychological interventions