It is clear that the public is an important stakeholder in research on neuroticism. Because of its enormous significance to the public health, an intensive research effort to fully understand relations among neuroticism, mental health, physical health, and quality of life would be well justified. A number of detailed causal models of the multiple mechanisms linking neuroticism and physical health outcomes have been proposed (Contrada et al., 1999;T. W. Smith, 2006). These need further testing and similar causal models for mental health outcomes need testing. It is likely that the best-supported and most useful constructs from each alternative model could be combined to create more comprehensive and useful models. Furthermore, it could be very useful and revealing to develop truly integrated models that would simultaneously explain causal relations between neuroticism and both mental and physical health outcomes in the same model. These adverse outcomes share too much in common to be treated entirely separately in such models. Moreover, including both physical and mental health outcomes in the same models will reveal much about their previously underestimated commonalities.
