Psychological Insights for Understanding Covid-19 and Health

Dr Dominika Kwasnicka, a research fellow at the Nossal Institute of Global Health is  publishing a book  Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19. Jointly edited with Prof Robbert Sanderman from the University of Twente, this book brings together insights into issues surrounding psychology, health and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current pandemic provides a unique opportunity to rethink how we interact with each other, how we work, and how our behaviour impacts the environment. Behaviour change has been particularly relevant during Covid-19 with new habitual behaviours such as frequent hand washing, physical distancing and wearing face masks.

Governments around the world have implemented policies to slow down and stop the spread of the virus. We are being introduced to new safety measures encouraging us to stay at home, to physically socialise less, to minimise our movement and to contact trace. These changes often come at the expense of us becoming more stressed, anxious and often struggling to cope. The psychological research presented in this book provides some suggestions for how to best deal with these new circumstances.

This book brings together topics such as health and wellbeing, digital health, health and trust, and behaviour change.

The current pandemic is unprecedented in terms of the global spread and its widespread impact on individuals, communities, and society as a whole. Dr Kwasnicka

Psychological Perspectives on COVID-19 aims to highlight some of the most topical themes with which psychological science will need to engage following COVID-19. It provides a thought-provoking read for professionals, students, academics and policy makers concerned with psychological consequences of the current pandemic for individuals, families and society. The chapters have three overarching themes: health behaviour change and wellbeing, issues of stress and coping, and how digital health technologies facilitate health behaviour change.

This timely and accessible book, with an introduction contextualising the chapters in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, will be available from December 14th. Order your copy 

Dr Dominika Kwasnicka is a behavioural scientist who has diverse interests in health psychology, digital health and research methods focusing on individuals. Before joining the NHMRC CRE, Dom studied and lived in Scotland and England. She has worked on digital health projects at Curtin University and Central Queensland University and she collaborates broadly with European colleagues in Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and Finland.