Should I be skeptical of schools that offer PhDs in health psychology? I'm not talking about schools that have post doctoral training in health psychology for clinical psychologists but schools that have programs in just health psychology?
I ask because I was checking out the Walden University website (you don't have to concern yourself with telling me that university sucks) and they said they had a PhD in health psychology that does not qualify for licensing. It is disturbing if you can't get a license after graduating that program and it is even more disturbing if you don't need a license to practice health psychology (i guess those are the options here).
I then did a search on yahoo for PhDs in health psychology and found very few places that actually offered them. Should I take that as a sign of something?
Yes and No. I think that you need to evaluate every program on it's actual merits. Health psychology is a sticky one because many health psychology programs are really programs within a clinical Ph.D. setting.
Examples of this are University of Texas, University of Kansas, University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Houston, USUHS (although called Medical Psychology with a clinical track is really "Health Psychology"), and others. You will find that these programs are APA accredited and qualify for licensure. These programs are sub-specializations of the clinical psychology Ph.D. tracks.
Now there are programs that are not within that realm and they are legitimate programs where you do not and cannot get licensure. However you are not interacting as a clinical psychologist, but perhaps as a consultant, other type of provider, or as a researcher.
There really has not been a long history of "Health Psychology" as a stand-alone discipline, as far as I know but rather, it has most often been a sub-specialty of clinical programs, and division 38's website confirms this (although I am sure exceptions exist.)
Medical Psychology, at least at USUHS, is not a degree that you can get licensure with unless you take the clinical track. Once again, really the program is part of the clinical psychology dept. However the lack of licensure, if your goal is to be a researcher is of little concern, and we have students that opt to take the program without the clinical track.
See the APA Division 38 website for Health Psychology:
http://www.health-psych.org/articles/what_is.php
"Psychologists who strive to understand how biological, behavioral, and social factors influence health and illness are called health psychologists. The term "health psychology" is often interchanged with the terms "behavioral medicine" or "medical psychology". While more than half of health psychologists provide clinical services as part of their duties, many health psychologists function in non-clinical roles primarily involving teaching and research."
"Many doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, social, or experimental psychology have specialized tracks or preceptorships in health psychology. A number of programs now exist in the United States and other countries specifically for doctoral training in health psychology."