The Psychology of Health and Illness: A Multicultural Perspective

The Psychology of Health and Illness is a thoroughly updated version of Leslie Frazier’s previous textbook on health psychology, which provides an engaging and contemporary approach to understanding health psychology from a truly international perspective. Combining both biopsychosocial and lifespan developmental perspectives, the book integrates core theory, research, and practice on global and cross-cultural health issues. It includes thoughtful and deliberately inclusive coverage of marginalized groups, especially BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented groups, designed to raise diversity and racial consciousness in a globally integrative way.

Alongside classic health psychology concepts, the author introduces students to cutting-edge scientific and medical topics such as epigenetics, the gut microbiome, and the nonmedical use of prescription drugs. The book also focuses on global public health and health disparities and promotes a strengths-based approach to health, rather than a deficits-based approach. It includes a wide range of pedagogical features including real-world applications, engaging anecdotes and case studies, opportunities for self-reflection, and numerous text boxes.

This is essential reading for undergraduate students on Health Psychology courses as well as those in related fields such as nursing and the allied health professions.

Leslie Frazier is the principal investigator and leader of the Health & Development Lab (HDL) in the Department of Psychology at Florida International University. She works with scholarly collaborators from around the world, community partners, graduate students, and undergraduate students. A developmental health psychologist, Dr Frazier is interested in the intersections among psychosocial factors and identity/sense of self within the contexts of health and chronic illness in emerging adulthood and later life. Her research, funded by the Mental Research Institute, focuses on how psychosocial, sociocultural, and interpersonal factors impact our perceptions of ourselves, our health, and our well-being. Dr Frazier and her team are currently investigating the factors that promote identity in people with disability, and the risk and resilience factors related to eating disorders in midlife menopausal women.