Appraising the Implementation of Complexity Approaches Within the Public Health Sector in Scotland. An Assessment Framework for Pre-Implementation Policy Evaluation

Abstract

Complexity approaches have gained international attention as potentially effective strategies to address population health challenges. In light of this, the Scottish government (Scot. Gov.) set the implementation of these approaches as the recommended practice for its public health sector organizations. This study evaluates the opportunity and feasibility of implementing complexity approaches in public health Scotland employees' everyday routine by employing a qualitative study that involves 20 stakeholders, representative of different organizations and roles. We made use of an assessment framework based on Soft Systems Methodology (SSm) and Normalization Process Theory (NPT) comprised of five phases: Phase One defines the boundaries, aims, and goals of the issue under study; Phase Two consists of data collection, drawing on the e-Health Implementation Toolkit (e-HIT); Phase Three involves short presentations and breakout group activities to provide information on the new policy; Phase Four employs system thinking tasks to structure debate and builds shared understanding among participants; Phase Five applies NPT to appraise the organizational position around complexity based on information from the preceding steps. We found two main obstacles to implementing complexity approaches: (1) a lack of a shared understanding of the key concepts in complexity and their practical implications; (2) stakeholders' fear of significant disruption to work routines and power relationships. We recommend addressing these issues with appropriate training and customization of goals and tools that may enable complexity approaches to succeed within the Scottish public health context. Our assessment framework allows the recognition of key mechanisms to support how Scotland's Public Health body can enhance the implementation of complexity approaches. The appraisal framework could be used to study early-stage policy implementation in other contexts.

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“… Racher and Annis [ 48 ] The community health action (CHA) model To guide the community assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of the process. Titler [ 51 ] Translation Science and Context A guide to help assess context in translation science. Wilson et al [ 49 ] The knowledge to action framework Provide support for the identification of decision points, interactions, and supporting structures to enable to move knowledge to sustainable action.…”

“…Similarly, Titler [ 51 ] recommends finding ways to account for systemic factors in the study design and randomized controlled designs. Zucca et al [ 52 ] place intervention within a systems approach, making a distinction between a complex systems approach, in which variables are so intertwined that the cause and effect relation is uncertain, versus a complicated system, where numerous elements and relationships exist but their relationship can be unveiled and understood.…”

Implementation of Systems Thinking in Public Policy: A Systematic Review

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Outdoor nature-based play in early learning and childcare centres: Identifying the determinants of implementation using causal loop diagrams and social network analysis

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“…GMB is widely employed for the construction of CLDs involving stakeholders in order to understand the systems that are facing the introduction of a new policy or practice, especially in the domain of social policies and health related issues (Hovmand, 2014). Furthermore, the employment of social network analysis for understanding the impact of new policies and practices on a system is becoming increasingly popular due to the many possibilities it offers to explore the relationships between factors in a system (McGlashan et al, 2016;Valente, 2012;Zucca et al, 2021). In this study, social network analysis is employed for two different reasons: to control for the reliability of the CLD and to understand its substantive meaning.…”