Systems Theory in Public Health

This paper delineates how analyzing the role of systems thinking in program planning, implementation, evaluation, and revision relates to: effective uses of information technology in public health practice, sources of inequality that produce health disparities across diverse populations, effective public health leadership, factors of population based health status and behavior, and public health action research. A brief description of systems theory will discuss relatively open and closed systems. How the focal system (area of focus) determines the task environment(s) and how the task environment illustrates the roles internal and external stakeholders. Similarly, an integration of systems will be infused into each section of the paper.

Systems

A system is defined as an organized whole that is made up of components that interact in a way distinct from their interaction with other entities and which endures over some period of time. The two types of systems are relatively open and relatively closed. The characteristics of a relatively open system in contrast to that of a relatively closed system are; the relatively open system on a continuous basis has exchanges of energy, information, and/or matter across its boundaries with the external environment. In addition, the relatively open system will ensure that are exchanges between and among the subsystems of its internal environment are maintained (Anderson, Carter, and Lowe, 1999).

Closed Systems

The relatively closed system is the complete opposite in that it fails to carry out sufficient exchanges of energy, information and/or matter across its boundaries with the external environment eventually causing entropy. A closed system refers to the lack of energy ...

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