System Dynamics Applications to Injury and Violence Prevention: a Systematic Review

AbstractPurpose of ReviewSystem dynamics (SD) is an approach to solving problems in the context of dynamic complexity. The purpose of this review was to summarize SD applications in injury prevention and highlight opportunities for SD to contribute to injury prevention research and practice.Recent FindingsWhile SD has been increasingly used to study public health problems over the last few decades, uptake in the injury field has been slow. We identified 18 studies, mostly conducted in the last 10  years. Applications covered a range of topics (e.g., road traffic injury, overdose, and violence), employed different types of SD tools (i.e., qualitative and quantitative), and served a variety of research and practice purposes (e.g., deepen understanding of a problem, policy analysis).SummaryGiven the many ways that SD can add value and complement traditional research and practice approaches (e.g., through novel stakeholder engagement and policy analysis tools), increased investment in SD-related capacity building and opportunities that support SD use are warranted.
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research