Changing Psychosocial Health in Individuals with Disabilities: Enhanced Well-being Despite Limitations?

• Applicant: Dr. Johannes Beller
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology ; Empirical Social Research ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550990181

Three main scenarios of future population-related health development are discussed in the literature: Morbidity expansion (increases in the time spent in illness and with limitations), Morbidity compression (decreases in the time spent in illness and with limitations), and dynamic equilibrium of morbidity (more quality of life despite chronic illnesses and limitations). Although an increasing proportion of people live with chronic limitations, it has not been studied to what extent the psychosocial health of people with limitations has changed over time in the sense of the dynamic equilibrium hypothesis. This will be examined as part of the proposed research project. It will be analyzed to what extent population-based temporal changes have occurred in specific aspects of the psychosocial health of people with limitations. The data basis is the surveys of the German Ageing Surveys of the years 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2021. Based on a biopsychosocial perspective on health, the following research questions will be examined: 1. How does the psychosocial health of people with limitations differ from people without limitations? 2. To what extent has the psychosocial health of people with limitations changed over time, accounting for age, period, and cohort effects, compared to people without limitations? 3. To what extent do socio-demographic changes explain the observed temporal changes in psychosocial health? The planned research project thus contributes to examining the validity of the dynamic equilibrium hypothesis of morbidity from a psychological perspective. So far, most national and international studies on morbidity development have focused on the distinction between the morbidity compression hypothesis and the morbidity expansion hypothesis. With an explicit focus on psychosocial health, via the proposed project it will be possible to differentiate to what extent the subjective well-being of people with limitations has changed over time, that is, whether a dynamic equilibrium of morbidity is present in the subjective experience of living with limitations. Based on these results, specific measures can also be developed to improve the quality of life and health of people with limitations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants