Systems Thinking and Design Thinking for Public Health Solutions

Nate Horwitz-Willis, DrPH

Public health is a field that deals with complex and wicked problems, The problems we face across public health are often interconnected, dynamic, and context dependent. They require innovative and holistic solutions that go beyond traditional methods and disciplines to address and improve upon challenges such as pandemics, climate change, health inequities, and the social and commercial determinants of health. How can emerging public health leaders tackle these challenges and create positive change in their communities and beyond? In this article, let’s briefly explore how systems thinking and design thinking can help public health leaders to understand, analyze, and solve public health problems in a more effective and creative way.

Emerging public health leaders are in a prime position to use these approaches to address some totally wicked and complex problems.

What is systems thinking?

Systems thinking is a way of thinking that focuses on the relationships and interactions among the elements of a system, rather than the individual parts. A system is a set of interconnected and interdependent components that form a whole and produce some outcome or behavior. Systems thinking helps us to see the big picture, identify the root causes and leverage points of a problem, and anticipate the consequences and feedback loops of our actions. Systems thinking also helps us to appreciate the diversity and complexity of systems, and to avoid oversimplifying or generalizing them (Birken et al., 2020; Rutter et al., 2021).

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is a human-centered and iterative process that aims to solve problems by empathizing with the users, defining the problem, ideating possible solutions, prototyping and testing them, and implementing and iterating them. Design thinking helps us to understand the needs, preferences, and emotions of the people we are designing for, and to co-create solutions with them that are desirable, feasible, and viable. Design thinking also helps us to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty, and to experiment and learn from failures (Liedtka, 2020; Vink et al., 2022).

How can systems thinking and design thinking be applied to public health problems?

Systems thinking and design thinking can be complementary and synergistic approaches for public health leaders to address those totally wicked and complex problems. Here are some examples of how they can be applied:

·????? Systems thinking can help public health leaders to map out the system of a public health problem, such as the stakeholders, the causal factors, the feedback loops, the outcomes, and the interrelationships among them. This can help them to identify the gaps, the opportunities, the leverage points, and the unintended consequences of their interventions (Birken et al., 2020; Rutter et al., 2021).

·????? Design thinking can help public health leaders to empathize with the people affected by the public health problem, such as the patients, the caregivers, the health workers, the policymakers, and the community members. This can help them to understand their needs, their pain points, their motivations, and their aspirations, and to involve them in the co-creation of solutions (Liedtka, 2020; Vink et al., 2022).

·????? Systems thinking can help public health leaders to evaluate the impact and sustainability of their solutions, such as the short-term and long-term effects, the direct and indirect effects, the positive and negative effects, and the trade-offs and synergies among them. This can help them to monitor and measure their outcomes, and to adapt and improve their solutions accordingly (Birken et al., 2020; Rutter et al., 2021).

·????? Design thinking can help public health leaders to innovate and experiment with their solutions, such as generating multiple and diverse ideas, prototyping and testing them with the users, and iterating and refining them based on the feedback. This can help them to create solutions that are more effective, user-friendly, and scalable (Liedtka, 2020; Vink et al., 2022).

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Systems thinking and design thinking are two approaches that can help emerging public health leaders to understand, analyze, and solve public health problems in a more effective and innovative way. The examples provided above give an idea about the approach leaders can use to address a diverse range of totally wicked and complex public health problems. Public health leaders can create and/or co-create solutions that are more holistic, human-centered, and adaptive that can improve the health and well-being of their communities and beyond by combining systems thinking and design thinking.

References

·????? Birken, S. A., Rohweder, C. L., Powell, B. J., Shea, C. M., Scott, J., Leeman, J., ... & Damschroder, L. (2020). T-CaST: an implementation theory comparison and selection tool. Implementation Science, 15(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-020-00959-4

·????? Liedtka, J. (2020). Design thinking: What it is and why it works. In The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13897-8_21

·????? Rutter, H., Savona, N., Glonti, K., Bibby, J., Cummins, S., Finegood, D. T., ... & White, M. (2017). The need for a complex systems model of evidence for public health. The Lancet, 390(10112), 2602-2604. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31267-9

·????? Vink, J., van der Meer, M., van der Grinten, T., & Kip, H. (2022). Design thinking for public health: a scoping review of the literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010005