Foundations of systems thinking for society, health and environment

Day 1: Introduction Day 2: Food System Day 3: Disease Systems Day 4: Ecosystems Day 5: Social Systems George Carlin
Foundations of systems thinking background Latter 19th century: Sanitary engineering, urban waste disposal, food safety and domestic hygiene, primarily to combat infectious disease risks Latter 20th century: Environmental (and occupational) laws and policies to reduce exposures to specified toxic chemical exposures (E.g. air pollutants, heavy metals industrials and agricultural CHEMICAL EFFLUENTS) 21st Century: Recognition and reduction of health endangering damage to Earths geophysical and ecological systems.

Wholstane or something like that- the epoch that we live in The Anthropocene Promoted by Noble Laureate Paul Crutzen Proposed epoch of Earth history that has begun with the rise of the human species as a globally potent bio geophysical force, capable of leaving a durable imprint in the geological record. A name not generated through hubris, rather it serves to stress Hannitys responsibility as stewards of the Earth.

The National Academy of Sciences

We are living in a world that is going to be incredibly complex We must find ways to make people interdisciplinary and think outside the box

Complicated versus Complex The Watch is complicat4ed o Composed of many different parts Two questions o What is the difference between producing enough food to adequately feed a given population vs. ensuring that a given population has equitable access to nutritious foods o What is the difference between purifying water through water treatment plants or ensure its safe to drink vs. preventing the contamination of headwaters.

Complexity Theory The attempt to reconcile the unpredictability of non-linear dynamic systems with a sense of underlying order and structure

What are systems? A system is an entity, which maintains its existence through the mutual interaction of its parts Two key components o Boundaries Boundaries: The limits we place around the system and the degree by which the system is isolated from its surroundings Emergence: Characteristics which arise from the mutual interaction of the parts and cannot be found as characteristic of any of the individual parts.

What is Systems Thinking? The 7 Levels of Systems Understanding o Stories Common themes which occur across different systems which can then be used to classify a given system. o Behavior Patterns A pattern in nature is an emergent property because it is the result of a systematic interaction of its component parts Super-organisms such as bee hives, bird flocks, and coral reefs are complex systems that exhibit blah balh o Simple Casual Links An illustration of cause and effect Feedback loops such as population cycles or interest rates o Archetypes and Complex Feedback Models o Adaptive Policies

o Implementation Strategies o Paradigms and inniertical that can create o Sees oneself as a part of, not ontto A systems thinker is someone who Sees the whole picture Changes perspectives to see leverage points in complex systems Looks for interdepencies Finds where unanticipated consequences emerge Seeks out stocks or accumulations and the time delay Sees oneself as part of, not out of the system

July 17 2013 Lecture Initial growth in the state of the system is eventually limited or falls off due to a resource constraint affecting or due to a side effect of the growing action Behavior Actions taken to reduce symptoms reduce the ability to take actions for the long term Can be either shifting the burden to short-term, rather than long-term, solutions or shifting the burden to an intervener, rather than to building system capability Not only exacerbates the effects of the Fixes That Fail dynamic, also it reduces the ability to take action for the long term and escape symptomatic solution There are two ways to close the performance gap o Improve performance o Lower the goal Also known as the Boiled frog syndrome

Infectious Disease continues to emerge. 69- Lassa fever; 75-Rees Syndrome; 76-Legionnaires Disease; 80-Toxic Shock Syndrome; 81- AIDS to present; 83-Hemorrhagic Enteritis E. Coli; 93-Sin Nombre Virus; 99-West Nile Virus(USA); 03-Anthrax; SARS

What is a disease? o Origin: Middle English ( in the sense lack of ease; inconvenience); from Old French desaise lack of ease, from des(expressing reversal)+ase Host Agent System Agent: Bacteria. Virus, Fungi, and Protozoa Host: Any organism that provides nutrients and shelter to an agent Environment: Physical and biological surroundings in which the host interacts

Disease Management in Animals Ant accidentally eaten by sheep Adult worm develops in bile duct of sheep or other plant-eating mammal Eggs relesased in feces Miracidum in egg Mother sporocyst Daughter Sporocyst with cercariae Cercariae escape from snail in simeball Slimeball containing cercariae eaten by ant Metacercaria encysts in ant

The Red Queen Hypothesis For an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with o Predator-prey o Parasite-host

Infectious Disease Epidemiology Transmission: How the disease moves from host to :host: o Infectiousness o Contact Patterns o Reproductive Ratio o Transmission probability

Disease Transmission System Direct Transmission o Horizontal Transmission: Spread from on host to another via conduct o Vertical Transmission: Spread to parent to offspring Indirect transmission o Vectors; Transmitted by living organisms: insects, rodent o Vehicle: Transmitted by an inanimate reservoir

Transmission: Infectiousness How easily is the pathogen transmitted?

Course of infection time line

Time of infect Transmission: Transmission probability Transmission probability depends on: Infectious host and susceptible; the pathogen (agent); environment and contact definition

o Agent Infectivity Pathogenicity Virulence Immunogenicity Antigenic Stability o Environment Weather Geography Occupational setting Food water and air quality o House/Susceptible Age Sex Genotype Behavior Nutritional status Health status Transmission: Transmission probability o Two methods used to estimate the transmission probability The secondary attack rate: focuses on the fate of a single infected case that comes into contact with a large number of susceptible individuals within a population(SAR= total secondary cases/ total susceptible exposed) The binomial model of transmission: focuses on one susceptible individual as she comes into contact with infectious hosts within a population