Systems Thinking in 49 Communities Related to Healthy Eating, Active Living, and Childhood Obesity

Abstract

The application of systems thinking tools combined with group model-building techniques creates opportunities to define and characterize complex systems in a manner that draws on the authentic voice of residents and community partners.

Effects of a multidisciplinary body weight reduction program on static and dynamic thoraco-abdominal volumes in obese adolescents

“…Adolescent obesity, a major health concern that has reached a worldwide epidemic dimension (Brennan et al 2015), is frequently associated with early cardiovascular risk, diabetes, sleep-disordered breathing, and impaired ventilatory function (Must et al 1992(Must et al , 1996Must and McKeown 2000;Sinha et al 2002;Schiel et al 2006). The last includes breathing at lower lung volumes, decreased thoracic compliance, and increased respiratory resistance secondary to the reduction in lung volumes related to overweight (Babb 1999;DeLorey et al 2005;Parameswaran et al 2006;Babb et al 2011;Chlif et al 2015).…”

Tools and analytic techniques to synthesise community knowledge in CBPR using computer-mediated participatory system modelling

“…Previous published studies synthesising causal diagrams have focussed on the presentation of variable "themes" across multiple diagrams, 18 or on manual synthesis of models by hand. 19 The variable theming approach is limited as the analysis removes all consideration of the connections from individual diagrams, simplifying outputs down to lists of similar variables, and removing the critical notion of complexly interconnected determinants that is integral to systems approaches to complex problems. Manual synthesis of individual diagrams overcomes this by producing a converged outcome that retains the form and insights expected from a causal diagram, however in communitybased projects the requisite expertise may not be available.…”

Advancing Systems Thinking Through the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Evaluation

“…7 However, a co-benefit of this evaluation technique was that participants learned systems thinking that they could apply to understanding the causes of and solutions to childhood obesity in their own communities. Thus, group-developed systems models became a community self-evaluation and planning tool.…”

“…8 It is reasonable to ask whether such an effort to translate a mainly-academic exercise of model building to community groups was feasible. The productivity of the community groups in identifying many causal variables in the causal loop diagrams, 7 suggests the systems thinking concepts were accessible and the systems “mapping” process was feasible.…”

“…In reflecting on the contributions of the Healthy Kids Healthy Communities (HKHC) evaluation to systems thinking, I organized my comments into accomplishments, challenges, and next steps. I draw on the papers in this Special Issue by Brennan et al, 7 Hoehner et al, 8 and Brownson et al 9 …”