Systems Science Methods in Public Health
By D. Luke, K. Stamatakis. Annual Review of Public Health, 2012
628 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Complex systems abound in public health. Complex systems are made up of heterogeneous elements that interact with one another, have emergent properties that are not explained by understanding the individual elements of the system, persist over time and adapt to changing circumstances. Public health is starting to use results from systems science studies to shape practice and policy, for example in preparing for global pandemics. However, systems science study designs and analytic methods remain underutilized and are not widely featured in public health curricula or training. In this review we present an argument for the utility of systems science methods in public health, introduce three important systems science methods (system dynamics, network analysis, and agent-based modeling), and provide three case studies where these methods have been used to answer important public health science questions in the areas of infectious disease, tobacco control, and obesity.
Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Management Science and Operations Research, Modeling and Simulation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bc00b8f82322156b9df86b1a2a0bec372d68f3ed
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
- Bernice A. Pescosolido
- Jack K. Martin
- M. Cerdá
- Melissa Tracy
- Katherine M. Keyes
- J. Horch
- Anne C. Krendl
Citations in the corpus
- Agent-Based Modeling in Public Health: Current Applications and Future Directions (2018, background): “Such hurdles include lack of training in these modeling techniques among public health students, researchers, and professionals (67, 71, 88), as well as the significant burden of time and computing resources needed to develop, run, and validate these models.”
- The Stigma Complex (2015, background): “As Luke & Stamatakis (2012) point out, research that does not consider the “system,” which we refer to here as the stigma complex, runs the risk of neither understanding nor avoiding unintended consequences of change efforts.”
- Nanomedicine-Driven Modulation of the Gut–Brain Axis: Innovative Approaches to Managing Chronic Inflammation in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease (2025, unknown): “This contrasts with system dynamics (SD) modeling, which focuses on aggregate patterns [269].”