In this essay, we pull together foundational research from the psychological, sociological, and medical sciences to illuminate the undeniable influence of the psychosocial context in constructing objective reality. From psychology, we review the growing body of research on how beliefs and expectations about common experiences (e.g., nutrition, stress, and aging) can fundamentally alter the impa...

The genetic counseling profession has devoted considerable attention to the process of risk communication (2) and the conceptualization of risk as a complex construct that comprises more than probability alone—for instance, by addressing how a client’s context and subjective perception of the severity of a potential outcome influences perceptions of risk (3). Within this framework, the identifi...

The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The majority of prison and jail inmates come from predominantly nonwhite and medically underserved communities. Although incarceration has adverse effects on both individual and community health, prisons and jails have also been used successfully as venues to provide health services to people with HIV who frequently lack sta...

Interdisciplinarity is often framed as an unquestioned good within and beyond the academy, one to be encouraged by funders and research institutions alike. And yet there is little research on how interdisciplinary projects actually work-and do not work-in practice, particularly within and across the social sciences and humanities. This article centres on "Hubbub", the first interdisciplinary 2-...

The consequence of taking customer orientation serious is to integrate them right at the heart of value creation – in new product design and development. The transitions in innovation management during the last years allow us exactly to that in a more resolute way. By democratizing knowledge and information the social media revolution strongly supported the dissemination of concepts such as ope...

Nanomedicine aims to apply and further develop nanotechnology to solve problems in medicine, related to diagnosis, treatment and/or disease prevention at the cellular and molecular level (Feng, 2006; Feng and Chien, 2003). Nanomedicine by nature is interdisciplinary, with benefits being realised at the interface of science and engineering, physical science and engineering, chemical science and ...