It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the 21st Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society in Maastricht (The Netherlands) and Hasselt (Belgium). For the first time two universities from two different countries are jointly organizing an EHPS conference. Scientific collaboration across countries represents the inner spirit and strength of EHPS and therefore, I am very happy to have the honour to open this trans-national conference.
The theme of this year's conference ‘Health Psychology and Society’ reflects an important and major challenge for the future development of our discipline. Health psychology focuses on the individual and the psychological processes underling health behaviour. Health behaviour is without question one of the most powerful factors impacting individual health across the lifespan. Meta-analyses have shown that behaviour-related risk factors such as physical inactivity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and obesity contribute to about half of the deaths in the USA (Mokdad et al., 2004). Moreover, longitudinal studies impressively show that adopting health behaviour even at higher ages reduces mortality and morbidity. Health behaviour change in middle and older adulthood, for example, appears to delay the onset of disability on average by seven years (Vita, Terry, Hubert, & Fries, 1998). Over the last decades, health psychologists have developed sophisticated data and models for explaining and changing health behaviour on the basis of individual beliefs and psychological processes. However, individuals do not live in an empty space-they are embedded in a social-cultural context that sets the stage for individual development and behaviour. If we want to face the current rapid epidemiological and demographic changes successfully, we need to understand social-cultural influences not only as ‘mediated moderators’ exercising their influence through health-related beliefs and cognitions. We need to understand how specific social-cultural contexts influence health beliefs and behaviour in order to develop interventions which are tailored to individual needs and cultural contexts rather than developing strategies to adapt the individual to interventions. To take up this challenge, we need to collaborate across disciplines, pooling expertise from social and life sciences – from, for example, neuroscience, psychology, and medicine to sociology – but we also need to systematically feed our scientific knowledge into societal decision processes in order to have a greater practical impact at the population level.
This year's EHPS conference ‘Health Psychology and Society’ represents an ideal platform for discussing these important challenges. The science presented at our EHPS conference is relevant to social-cultural and behaviour links in various ways. Topics covered include cultural sensitivity in health promotion programs, interventions mapping, culture and illness representations, and the role of mass media in societal processes, to name just a few.
A highlight of each year's EHPS conference are the keynote presentations. I am confident that you share my enthusiasm about this year's speakers, which will be Susan Pick, Herman Schaalma, Jan Van den Bulck, and Wayne Velicer. I am looking forward with great interest and curiosity to these keynote addresses.
The conference offers pre- and post-conference workshops covering a range of highly relevant topics: CREATE will run a workshop for young researchers on ‘Intervention mapping’, headed by Gerjo Kok, Herman Schaalma, and Rob Ruiter. Furthermore, SYNERGY, which promotes collaboration amongst advanced researchers, will run a workshop on ‘Culture, Health, and Illness Representations’, facilitated by Michael Diefenbach, Alison Karasz, and Jean Edman.
A further innovation this year is the new format ‘Meet the Expert’ where you will have the opportunity to discuss these topics with our finest scientists, Michael Diefenbach, Marie Johnston, Hannah McGee, Herman Schaalma, and Wayne Velicer. The main aim of this new format is to facilitate and to stimulate interaction between early and advanced career scientists in an informal and supportive atmosphere. We hope that you will find this new development useful and that it contributes to the success of the EHPS conference.
This exciting conference and scientific programme was only possible thanks to the voluntary commitment of time, energy and expertise of many people. First of all, my special thanks goes to the local conference organising and scientific committee that has made it possible for us all to meet here at this great place. Please join me in thanking Gerjo Kok and Jan Vinck and their teams for their excellent work. My special thanks further goes to Jet Van der Pluijm who coordinated and coped with all the thousands of different views, needs, and tasks involved in organising a conference on a daily basis in an excellent manner. Furthermore, the evaluation of the many presentations was accomplished by the help of those colleagues serving as scientific committee members and track chairs, and I would very much like to thank them all for their energy in reviewing the abstracts. Lastly, I wish to thank the organisers of the CREATE and SYNERGY workshops, without whom these endeavours could not take place.
On behalf of the EHPS I wish you a very productive conference and a pleasant stay in Maastricht/Hasselt, and we hope that you will have the opportunity to establish new collaborations and research networks and strengthen existing ties.
Prof. Britta Renner
President, European Health Psychology Society