Prof. Yael Benyamini

Yael Benyamini is a Full Professor at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work and a researcher in the fields of health and aging, and in particular, women’s health. Prof. Benyamini attained her master's degree in social psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her PhD in health and social psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She is an Honorary Fellow of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS). She served as Secretary of the EHPS, an Associate Editor of Psychology & Health and a guest editor for Health Psychology Review, the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, and Frontiers in Psychiatry. She published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and over 20 chapters and invited articles and is co-editor of the book Assessment in Health Psychology. Following the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she initiated and led the “Pregnancy and Childbirth in Corona times” track in the ACADEMIA-IL project, in which an information kit and guidelines were developed for pregnant women, for health care professionals in midwifery and obstetrics, and for managers and policy makers related to the functioning of these disciplines during a pandemic. Yael is also an avid mountain cyclist.

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Prof. Benyamini studies how people think about their health. She co-authored with Prof. Ellen Idler the now classic 1997 review on self-rated health, which provided a theoretical framework for understanding the validity of subjective ratings of health. This review has led to a dramatic expansion of research on self-ratings of health and was recognized as one of the most highly cited articles in the social sciences (cited over 6,000 times to date). Prof. Benyamini has continued to make significant contributions to this field, expanding her research from perceptions of global health to those of specific conditions and their effects on coping with health threats and ultimately on the psychological and physical outcomes. She focused on chronic diseases (e.g., pain, heart disease) and ageing and later on women's health issues (e.g., infertility, pregnancy, menopause). In recent years, she led large research groups in the area of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum adjustment and has been involved in international networks of childbirth researchers.

Link to updated list of publications on ORCID

Recent publications:

Link to updated list of publications on ORCID

פרסומים אחרונים:

Karademas, E.C. & Benyamini, Y. (2025). The psychosocial impact of chronic disease. In: R. Sandermann & K. Morgan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Health Psychology: Global and Contemporary Issues (1st ed.). (pp. 379-394) Routledge. 

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003318026.

Benyamini, Y., Tovim, S., & Preis, H. (2025). Who plans to give birth with a doula? Demographic factors and perceptions of birth. Women and Birth, 38, 101880. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2025.101880 

Shafran, I., Benyamini, Y., Keinan-Boker, L., & Gerber, Y. (2024). Self-rated health and mortality among older adults in Israel: Comparison between Jewish and Arab Populations. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 13, 6978. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13226978

Davies, L., de Wildt, G., Benyamini, Y., Ramkumar, A. & Adams, R. (2024). Exploring the experiences of English-speaking women who have moved to Israel and subsequently used Israeli fertility treatment services: a qualitative study. PLOS ONE, 19(8), e0309265. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0309265

Birger, L., Benyamini, Y., Goor, Y., Sahar, Z., & Peled, E. (2024). Reproductive healthcare utilization for women in the sex trade: a qualitative study. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, 13, 43. DOI:10.1186/s13584-024-00627-7

Tenne, Y., Kahalon R., Daari, L., Preis, H., Eisner, M., Chen, R., Mor, P., Grisaru Granovsky, S., Samueloff, A., & Benyamini Y. (2024). Is oxytocin administration during childbirth associated with increased risk for postpartum post-traumatic stress symptoms? A preliminary investigation. Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, 38(3), 315–325. DOI:10.1097/JPN.0000000000000760

Shidlo, N., Lazarov, A., & Benyamini, Y. (2024). Stressful life events and the occurrence of skin cancer. Psycho-Oncology, 33(5), e6343. DOI:10.1002/pon.6343

Benyamini, Y., Delicate, A., Ayers, S., Dikmen-Yildiz, P., Gouni, O., Jonsdottir, S.S., Karlsdottir, S.I., Kömürcü Akik, B., Leinweber, J., Murphy-Tighe, S., Pajalic, Z., Riklikiene, O., Limmer, C.M. (2024). Key dimensions of women’s and their partners' experiences of childbirth: A systematic review of reviews of qualitative studies. PLOS ONE, 19(3): e0299151. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0299151

Parizian-Steinberg, N., Benyamini, Y., & Weiss-Gal, I. (2024). Factors associated with the intention to work with older adults among first year social work students in Israel. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 67(5), 588-604. DOI:10.1080/01634372.2024.2339972

Birger, L., Peled, E., & Benyamini, Y. (2024). Stigmatizing and inaccessible: The perspectives of female sex workers on barriers to reproductive health care utilization – a scoping review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 80(6), 2273-2289. DOI: 10.1111/jan.16010