The Psychoexposome: A holistic perspective beyond health and disease.

BACKGROUND: The concept of the exposome has emerged as a new strategy for studying all environmental exposures throughout an individual’s life and their impact on human health. Nowadays, electronic devices are available to collect data about an individual’s geolocation, biological function, or exposure biomarkers. The appearance of “omic” sciences and advances in bioinformatics have allowed massive data-gathering and analysis from various scientific fields.

OBJECTIVE: to propose the term Psychoexposome in line with the concept of the exposome from the field of environmental sciences.

METHOD: a literature review of psychological terms associated with the exposome concept was carried out and the rationale and benefits of a psychoexposme approach for psychological sciences is discussed.

RESULTS: the terms psychology, psychiatry and neurological diseases are scarce in the exposome approach. A long tradition in psychology of performing epidemiological studies and in the study of multifactorial influences traits places psychologists at an advantageous starting point for conducting psychoexposome studies.

CONCLUSION: psychology may take advantage from both exposome and omic sciences to create an integrated psychoexposome approach that may help in deciphering the etiology of psychological disorders and improving people’s mental health.