Systems Science: A Revolution in Public Health Policy Research

The new systems science approaches emerging in public health research are not new at all; they have a track record earned over several decades in other disciplines, such as physics, operations research, economics, engineering, and, more recently, systems biology. At their core, systems science methodologies are designed to generate models, or simplified versions, of reality. By replicating the real world in important ways—simplifying where possible while retaining the critical aspects relevant to the problem under study—we can better understand the structural complexity of real-world problems that results from the interaction of specific phenomena and their environments. Systems science approaches have been used to address wide-ranging topics such as wildfire control, overfishing, decline of ancient civilizations, climate change, and terrorism networks. A major reason for their recent adoption in the public health arena is a growing recognition of their utility for addressing the complex problems rampant in public health generally1 and in specific domains (e.g., neighborhood effects on health and obesity).2,3 A small but growing number of studies have employed systems science methodologies to understand and address public health problems such as pandemic flu,4 HIV/AIDS,5 diabetes prevalence,6 and heroin markets.7 A few researchers have been using systems science to further tobacco control for nearly a decade.8,9