This Research Topic is the second volume of the Research Topic "Measurement in Health Psychology" Please see the first volume here

Health psychology is the investigation of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. It brings together biological, psychological, and social components to investigate the behavior of healthy or ill people and the decision-making processes that may influence the delivery of healthcare services. Several issues and factors are still understudied in health psychology. Psychological effects of the Covid-19 outbreaks, caregiving experiences, work-related stress and life-work balance, quality of life of sexual minorities, young generations' orientations and motivation for health, or impacts of the new media on people's mental health are just a few examples of phenomena that remain partially explained. A critical issue in health psychology is measurement. Researchers may indeed use measures to elucidate processes to advance theory and evidence, to gain a greater understanding of the observed phenomena, or to assess the effects of interventions delivered to improve health and healthcare outcomes.

Health psychology encompasses various goals and audiences, uses different conceptual models, and is characterized by diverse clinical applications. Measures are useful to the extent that they permit valid inferences within the research areas and provide reliable information within the practice contexts. However, health psychology shares challenging measurement issues that include developing, evaluating, and refining measurement procedures and techniques. A variety of key psychological constructs, health-related behaviors, and responses to health, illness, and healthcare need to be addressed and measured. Different methodological approaches to developing, evaluating, and applying measurement instruments have been proposed, such as classical test theory, item response theory and Rasch models, as well as clinimetrics. Considerable progress has been made, and methodological changes proceed quickly. However, they often struggle to reach the application contexts resulting in a disconnect between the advanced methodologies available and how measures are created and tested in practice. Dialogue and discussion between researchers and professionals on theoretical, methodological, and application aspects may bridge this gap.

This Research Topic will provide an overview of updated principles and methods of measurement applied to health psychology. This Research Topic will focus on advancing the issue of measurement to explain how and why measures are a critical part of research and practice in health psychology and what strategies could be useful for improving the process of developing valid, reliable, and sensitive instruments in this field.

We solicit contributions from different statistical, psychometric, or clinimetric perspectives to the issue of measurement in health psychology. They may include conceptual clarifications, empirical or modeling work, development of new instruments, validation and adaptation of existing measures to various settings, application of measures to change over time, and critical reviews of current measures.

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