January 7, 2026

Having control over your own health through access to medical appointments, healthy foods, clean air and water, among other resources indeed fosters better health. It’s equally understandable that when an individual doesn’t have these, they are at risk for worse health.

But simply believing that you don’t have control over your health could actually compound these problems, according to a recently published study from Drexel University researchers in the journal Psychology, Health & Medicine.

The team found that, among adult cancer survivors, external health locus of control — the belief that you don’t have control over your own health, or that your health comes down to luck or other outside forces beyond one’s own actions — acts as a pathway linking lower education level and higher levels of inflammation in the body.

“We found that cancer survivors with less formal education were more likely to perceive that their health was largely determined by factors out of their control,” said lead author Madeline Plummer, a BS in Public Health student in the Dornsife School of Public Health who conducted this research as a Drexel Star Scholar and recipient of a Drexel Undergraduate Research & Enrichment Program Mini-Grant.

"This perceived lack of control is linked to higher inflammation, which we know is a reliable indicator of risk of age-related chronic disease," said Plummer.

The Drexel News Blog checked in with the study's senior author Agus Surachman, PhD, an assistant professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health, about how these findings should change how we look at health care, particularly for cancer patients.

Read the full Q&A with Surachman on the Drexel News Blog: How Can Feeling in Control Foster Healthy Aging Among Adult Cancer Survivors?