Physiological Correlates of Processing Health-Related Information: An Idea for the Adoption of a Foreign Field

Abstract

Measuring health may refer to the measurement of general health status through measures of physical function, pain, social health, psychological aspects, and specific disease. Almost no evidence is available on the possible interaction of physiological measures and correlating emotional–affective states that are triggered by dealing with individual health-relevant issues and their specific processing modes. Public health research has long been concerned with the processing of health-related information. However, it is not yet clear which factors influence access and the handling of health-related information in detail. One way to close this research gap could be adopting methods from neurocognitive experiments to add psychophysiological data to existing approaches in health-related research. In this article, we present some of these methods and give a narrative overview and description of their usefulness for enlarged research in public health.