Systems Science and Population Health

Edited by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed and Sandro Galea

Applies the conceptual and methodological tools of computer science, ecology, and economics to perennial public health challenges
Introduces methods such as machine learning and systems dynamics modeling without presupposing a strong background in statistics
Contextualizes systems science's setbacks and successes by means of a thorough discussion of its intellectual evolution
Represents an innovative approach to foundational questions in population health science
An ideal core text for public health and epidemiology coursework

Systems Science and Population Health

Edited by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed and Sandro Galea

Description

Population health is complex and multileveled, encompassing dynamic interactions between cells, societies, and everything in between. Our typical approach to studying population health, however, remains oriented around a reductionist approach to conceptualizing, empirically analyzing, and intervening to improve population health. The trouble is that interventions founded on simplifying a complex world often do not work, sometimes yielding failure or, even worse, harm. The difficult truth is that "silver bullet" health science often fails, and understanding these failures can help us improve our approach to health science, and, ultimately, population health.

SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND POPULATION HEALTH employs principles from across a range of sciences to refine the way we understand population health. By augmenting traditional analytic approaches with new tools like machine learning, microsimulation, and social network analysis, population health can be studied as a dynamic and complex system. This allows us to understand population health as a complex whole, offering new insights and perspectives that stand to improve the health of the public. This text offers the first educational and practical guide to this forward-thinking approach.

Comprising 17 chapters from the vanguard of population health, epidemiology, computer science, and medicine, this book offers a three-part introduction to the subject:

· An intellectual and conceptual history of systems science as it intersects with population health
· Concise, introductory overviews of important and emerging methodological tools in systems science, including systems dynamics, agent-based modeling, microsimulation, social network analysis, and machine-learning-all with relevant examples drawn from population health literature
· An exploration of future implications for systems science and its applications to our understanding of population health issues

For researchers, students, and practitioners, SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND POPULATION HEALTH redefines many of the foundational elements of how we understand population health. It should not be missed.

Systems Science and Population Health

Edited by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed and Sandro Galea

1.Introduction
Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed

SECTION 1: Simplicity, complexity and population health

2. Reductionism at the dawn of population health
Kristin Heitman

3. Wrong answers: when simple interpretations create complex problems
David S. Fink, Katherine M. Keyes

4. Complexity: the evolution towards 21st century science
Anton Palma, David W. Lounsbury

5. Systems thinking in population health research and policy
Stephen Mooney

SECTION 2: Methods in systems population health

6. Generation of systems maps: mapping complex systems of population health
Helen de Pinho

7. Systems dynamics models
Eric Lofgren

8. Agent-based modeling
Brandon Marshall

9. Microsimulation
Sanjay Basu

10. Social network analysis: the ubiquity of social networks
and their importance for population health
Douglas A. Luke, Amar Dhand, Bobbi J. Carothers

SECTION 3: Systems science towards a consequential population health

11. Machine learning
James H. Faghmous

12. Systems science and the social determinants of population health
David S. Fink, Katherine M. Keyes, Magdalena Cerdá

13. Systems approaches to understanding how the environment
influences population health and population health interventions
Melissa Tracy

14. Systems of behavior and population health
Mark Orr, Kathryn Ziemer, Daniel Chen

15. Systems under your skin
Karina Standahl Olsen, Hege Bøvelstad, Eiliv Lund

16. Frontiers in health modeling
Nathaniel Osgood

17. Systems science and population health
Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, Sandro Galea

Systems Science and Population Health

Edited by Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed and Sandro Galea

Author Information

Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, MD, DPhil, is a public health physician and epidemiologist. He serves the City of Detroit as the Executive Director of the Detroit Health Department and Health Officer. Under his leadership, the Detroit Health Department has emerged as a state and national leader in promoting healthy air quality, lead elimination, and public health innovation. Dr. El-Sayed's research explores urban health policy, the social determinants of health, and health inequalities. Previously, he was a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University.

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, is a physician and an epidemiologist interested in the social production of health of urban populations. His work explores innovative cells-to-society approaches to population health questions. He is interested in advancing a consequentialist approach to population health scholarship. He currently serves as Robert A. Knox Professor and Dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University. He is a past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Together they have been engaged in systems science scholarship and education for more than 15 years.

Contributors:

Sanjay Basu, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.

Hege Bøvelstad, Department of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.

Bobbi J. Carothers, Center for Public Health Systems Science, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.

Magdalena Cerdá, Department of Emergency Medicine, Violence Prevention Research Program, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA.

Daniel Chen, Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory, Biocomplexity Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.

Amar Dhand, Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.

Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, Detroit Health Department, City of Detroit, Detroit, MI.

James H. Faghmous, Arnhold Global Health Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.

David S. Fink, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY.

Sandro Galea, School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA.

Kristin Heitman, Independent Scholar, Bethesda, MD.

Katherine M. Keyes, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY.

Eric Lofgren, Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health, Washington State University, Pullman, WA.

David W. Lounsbury, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Department of Family and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY.

Douglas A. Luke, Center for Public Health Systems Science, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.

Eiliv Lund, Department of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.

Brandon Marshall, Department of Epidemiology, Brown University School of Public Health, Providence, RI.

Stephen Mooney, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY.

Karina Standahl Olsen, Department of Community Medicine, University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway.

Mark Orr, Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory, Biocomplexity Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.

Nathaniel Osgood, Department of Computer Science, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Bioengineering Division, University of Saskatchewan, SK, Canada.

Anton Palma, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY.

Helen de Pinho, Population and Family Health at the Columbia University Medical Center, Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY.

Melissa Tracy, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University at Albany School of Public Health, Albany, NY.

Kathryn Ziemer, Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.