Engaging Stakeholders in Mapping and Modeling Complex Systems Structure to Inform Population Health Research and Action

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Kristen Hassmiller Lich ◽  
Jill Kuhlberg
Keyword(s):  
System Dynamics ◽  
Population Health ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Boundary Objects ◽  
Systems Science ◽  
Group Model ◽  
System Maps ◽  
Learning And Collaboration ◽  
System Mapping

Systems science methods are designed to study “wholes” and to support decision-making in the context of complexity. While these methods are powerful in the hands of researchers, they can be transformative when used collaboratively with the stakeholders impacted by and capable of impacting a population health phenomena. This chapter introduces group model building (GMB), developed by practitioners of system dynamics seeking to meaningfully engage system stakeholders in all stages of model building and use. The authors describe the general approach, its alignment with community-based participatory research, and the role system dynamics artifacts and other system maps serve as “boundary objects” to facilitate co-learning and collaboration among individuals with diverse experiences, world views, disciplinary backgrounds, and/or organizational affiliations. The chapter introduces emerging examples of GMB processes, adapted for use with other systems science modeling methods, as well as other examples of collaborative system mapping that can accentuate the GMB toolbox and generate additional boundary objects

Exploring construction workers' attitudinal ambivalence: a system dynamics approach

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng Xu ◽  
Mengge Zhang ◽  
Bo Xia ◽  
Jiangbo Liu
Keyword(s):  
System Dynamics ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Safety Management ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Group Model Building ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Pressure ◽  
Safety Attitude

PurposeThis study aimed to identify driving factors of safety attitudinal ambivalence (AA) and explore their influence. Construction workers' intention to act safely can be instable under conflicting information from safety management, co-workers and habitual unsafe behaviour. Existing research explained the mechanism of unsafe behaviours as individual decisions but failed to include AA, as the co-existence of both positive and negative attitude.Design/methodology/approachThis study applied system dynamics to explore factors of construction workers' AA and simulate the process of mitigating the ambivalence for less safety behaviour. Specifically, the group model building approach with eight experts was used to map the causal loop diagram and field questionnaire of 209 construction workers were used to collect empirical data for initiating parameters.FindingsThe group model building identified five direct factors of AA, namely the organisational safety support, important others' safety attitude, emotional arousal, safety production experience and work pressure, with seven feedback paths. The questionnaire survey obtained the initial values of the factors in the SD model, with the average ambivalence at 0.389. The ambivalence between cognitive and affective safety attitude was the highest. Model simulation results indicated that safety experience and work pressure had the most significant effects, and safety experience and positive attitude of co-workers could compensate the pressure from tight schedule and budget.Originality/valueThis study provided a new perspective of the dynamic safety attitude under the co-existence of positive and negative attitude, identified its driving factors and their influencing paths. The group model building approach and field questionnaire surveys were used to provide convincible suggestions for empirical safety management with least and most effective approaches and possible interventions to prevent unsafe behaviour with tight schedule and budget.

scholarly journals The SMART Framework: Integration of Citizen Science, Community-Based Participatory Research, and Systems Science for Population Health Science in the Digital Age (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarun Reddy Katapally
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Population Health ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Participatory Research ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Health Science ◽  
Systems Science ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Science Community

UNSTRUCTURED Citizen science enables citizens to actively contribute to all aspects of the research process, from conceptualization and data collection, to knowledge translation and evaluation. Citizen science is gradually emerging as a pertinent approach in population health research. Given that citizen science has intrinsic links with community-based research, where participatory action drives the research agenda, these two approaches could be integrated to address complex population health issues. Community-based participatory research has a strong record of application across multiple disciplines and sectors to address health inequities. Citizen science can use the structure of community-based participatory research to take local approaches of problem solving to a global scale, because citizen science emerged through individual environmental activism that is not limited by geography. This synergy has significant implications for population health research if combined with systems science, which can offer theoretical and methodological strength to citizen science and community-based participatory research. Systems science applies a holistic perspective to understand the complex mechanisms underlying causal relationships within and between systems, as it goes beyond linear relationships by utilizing big data–driven advanced computational models. However, to truly integrate citizen science, community-based participatory research, and systems science, it is time to realize the power of ubiquitous digital tools, such as smartphones, for connecting us all and providing big data. Smartphones have the potential to not only create equity by providing a voice to disenfranchised citizens but smartphone-based apps also have the reach and power to source big data to inform policies. An imminent challenge in legitimizing citizen science is minimizing bias, which can be achieved by standardizing methods and enhancing data quality—a rigorous process that requires researchers to collaborate with citizen scientists utilizing the principles of community-based participatory research action. This study advances SMART, an evidence-based framework that integrates citizen science, community-based participatory research, and systems science through ubiquitous tools by addressing core challenges such as citizen engagement, data management, and internet inequity to legitimize this integration.

scholarly journals Strengthening child inclusion in the classroom in rural schools of Pakistan and Afghanistan: What did we learn by testing the system dynamics protocol for community engagement?

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Trani ◽  
Parul Bakhshi ◽  
Alan Mozaffari ◽  
Munib Sohail ◽  
Hashim Rawab ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
System Dynamics ◽  
Rural Schools ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Education Quality ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
Central Tenet

Access to education has been the central tenet of the Millennium Development Goal 2, which focused strongly on increasing enrolment yet failed to promote education quality and equity and address contextual complexities that sustain exclusion. As a consequence, many children are not learning. There is growing recognition that effective, efficient and equitable education for all will not be achieved without better accountability. The present paper details innovative methods for strengthening the learning process through better social accountability. The paper defines and tests in rural schools of Afghanistan and Pakistan a community-based system dynamics protocol using participatory group model building (GMB) techniques. We tested the protocol with two groups of teachers and one group of children, with the three produced causal loop diagrams highlighting factors that influence learning in the classroom from the perspectives of the participants. The sessions showed interest, engagement, quick mastery of how GMB methods work and clear understanding of how the current classroom system hinders learning for many students. Researchers found that large autonomy and initiative could be left to the workshop participants, keeping the facilitator’s role to one of explaining the method and asking clarification about causal relations.

Drought and water management in the German agricultural sector - a participatory system dynamics approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Valencia ◽  
Sabine Egerer ◽  
María Máñez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Management ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
System Dynamics ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Elevated Temperatures ◽  
Agricultural System ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact

<p>Higher temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns caused by climate change may potentially affect water availability for agriculture and increase the risk of crop loss in Northeast Lower Saxony (NELS), Germany. The drought of 2018 showed that an intensification of irrigation might be a temporary solution. However, a long-term increase in water extraction, especially during drought periods, is not a sustainable solution. To assess possible water management solutions, we implement a participatory system dynamics approach, namely Group Model Building, to develop a qualitative system dynamics model (QSDM) describing the agricultural system and its relation to water resources in NELS.</p><p>The development of the QSDM seeks to understand the complexity of the interactions between agriculture and hydrological systems, recognize the stakeholders’ needs and identify risks and weaknesses of both systems. By understanding this, we expect to reinforce the adaptation process, reduce conflict and be able to suggest tailored solutions and adaptation measures. The QSDM incorporates a wide range of perceptions, as twenty stakeholders ranging from farmers, government agencies, environmental protection organizations and local water authorities were involved in the QSDM development. Their perceptions were recorded in the QSDM through individual interviews and a group workshop.</p><p>Through the QSDM, we identified and mapped the structure and connections between agriculture and the water balance. It was also possible to identify the strongest feedback loops governing both sectors as well as their influence on the current situation. The loops represent behaviors and structures, which might become unmanageable under climate change conditions. The causal loops include the different uses for the available water of the region, the impact of irrigation, the significance of crop selection and the importance of sustainable soil management.</p><p>By analyzing the system this way, we confirmed that climate change poses a risk to the region as elevated temperatures could increase the crop water demand and increase the need for irrigation. In the same way, changes in the rain patterns could affect the water balance of the region. The agricultural system has, however, potential to adapt by implementing new water management strategies such as restructuring water rights, water storage and reuse and conjunctive water use. Other measures include increasing the irrigation efficiency, changing crops and enhancing the soil quality, among others.</p>

Explaining how group model building supports enduring agreement

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 783-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney James Scott
Keyword(s):  
System Dynamics ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Group Model Building ◽  
Combined Model ◽  
Dynamics Modelling ◽  
Core Conditions ◽  
Dynamics Models ◽  
Modelling Process

AbstractSystem dynamics models are typically used to simulate the behaviour of the problem system under discussion environment, to help understand and solve complex problems. Group model building is a social process for including client groups in the system dynamics modelling process. Recent evidence suggests group model building is useful in supporting durable group decisions by supporting the mental models of participants to become more aligned. There have been several mechanisms proposed to explain these effects. This paper creates a combined model that links the five best-supported mechanisms. The combined model suggests five core conditions of group model building that contributes to its success: completing a structured task, producing a tangible artefact, representing system complexity, the portrayal of causal links, and easy modification or transformation of the artefact by participants. Practitioners are encouraged to use group decision approaches that integrate these conditions.

scholarly journals Embedding Systems Thinking into EWB Project Planning and Development: Assessing the Utility of a Group Model Building Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Pugel ◽  
Jeffrey P Walters
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
System Dynamics ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Group Model Building ◽  
Engineering Project

Amongst growing sociotechnical efforts, engineering students and professionals both in the international development sector and industry are challenged to approach projects more holistically to achieve project goals.  Engineering service learning organizations must similarly adapt their technological projects to consider varying cultural and economic structures, ensuring more resilient social progress within development efforts.  In practice, systems thinking approaches can be utilized to model the social, economic, political, and technological implications that influence the sustainability of an engineering project. This research assesses the utility of integrating systems thinking into Engineers Without Borders (EWB) project planning and development, thereby improving project impact and more effectively engaging members.  At a workshop held at an EWB-USA 2016 Regional Conference, the authors presented a planning and evaluation framework that applies group model building with system dynamics to foster systems thinking through factor diagramming and analysis. To assess the added value of the framework for EWB project planning and development, extensive participant feedback was gathered and evaluated during the workshop and through an optional post-workshop survey.  Supported by thoughtful observations and feedback provided by the EWB members, the model building workshop appeared to help participants reveal and consider project complexities by both visually and quantitatively identifying key non-technical and technical factors that influence project sustainability.  Therefore, system dynamics applied in a group model building workshop offers a powerful supplement to traditional EWB project planning and assessment activities, providing a systems-based tool for EWB teams and partner communities to build capacity and create lasting change.

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