Encyclopedia of Health and Medicine

HUMAN RELATIONS
The area of human relations covers the interactions between people as those interactions affect overall health, specific
health conditions, and QUALITY OF LIFE. Practitioners who provide services within human relations may be psychologists,
social workers, mental health nurse practitioners (MHNPs), professional counselors, school counselors, and organizational
development specialists.
This section, “Human Relations,” presents an
overview discussion of the general relationship
between human interaction and health and
entries about specific issues within human relations.
The section “Psychiatric Disorders and Psychologic
Conditions” presents entries about the
health and health conditions of thought and emotion.
The section “The Nervous System” contains
content about the health and health conditions of
the structures of the BRAIN and nerves.
Human Interactions and Health
The diagnostic models of many Eastern health
systems evaluate an individual’s temperament and
overall circumstances in conjunction with, as well
as on equal standing with, physical signs such as
PULSE and body temperature. Interest in how people
and their interactions with one another as
well as with their environments entered the realm
of Western medicine’s empirical evidence model
in the 1950s when research began to confirm correlations
between factors such as stress and health
conditions such as CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE (CVD).
Other associations rapidly emerged, quantifying
and substantiating the complex relationships
among health, disease, attitudes, and satisfaction
with life circumstances.
Social relationships are crucial in the human
experience, ranging from the limited though
sometimes intense interactions of in the workplace
to lifelong friendships to the emotionally
and physically intimate partnerships of romantic
partners to the bonds of family. Relationships are
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the framework of culture and society, around the
world and across generations. They are essential
to health and often play roles, directly and indirectly,
in the development of disease.
Interventions to Treat or Prevent Disease
Awareness of the interactions between social relationships
and health provides opportunity to prevent
adverse effects. Stress is perhaps the classic
example, as much research in recent decades has
illuminated the numerous and varied effects of
emotional and psychologic stress on physical
health. Stress may arise from any aspect of
human relations or social settings, from family to
work, and may manifest through diverse expressions
ranging from outwardly explosive anger or
acts of VIOLENCE to inwardly ravaging disease
processes such as CVD. Sustained emotional stress
can maintain BLOOD PRESSURE and HEART RATE at
higher than normal levels for extended periods of
time, potentially altering the function of the cardiovascular
system in negative and permanent
ways. Recognizing and learning to manage the
underlying factors responsible for such stress may
mitigate the physiologic and health consequences.
At the other end of the spectrum is growing
awareness of the extent to which a person’s spiritual
beliefs and cultural traditions affect the perceptions
of health and disease as well as
receptiveness to treatments. Health-care providers
are quick to point out that despite the astonishing
technologic advances of recent decades, much of
modern medicine remains more art than science.