Health psychologists have found that not only behavior has an impact on disease, but also attitudes and social factors. These factors combined to form the biopsychosocial model which guides the work of many health psychologists today.
There are five major aspects to health psychology, in which each contribute to the overall existence of health psychology. Health psychology contributes to our understanding of health and illness through patients' adjustment to serious illnesses, their health beliefs, which influences their behavior, their mind and body connection, and finally the psychosocial factors that can reinforce healthy behaviors and prevent negative ones.
