Designing Population Health Research Grounded in Complex Systems Science

There have been increasing calls to use complex systems research approaches to address pressing population health problems. To respond to this call, the authors argue that researchers must shift their thinking in how they design population health research studies. Although designing research from a complex systems approach follows the same basic steps as traditional studies that are anchored in statistical, deductive research, new elements of dynamic complexity must be taken into account. This chapter provides an overview of designing research grounded in complex systems. It details the research design steps following a complex systems approach, emphasizing the initial stages of defining and narrowing the research focus. Complex systems issues compel researchers to define objectives and ask questions about how factors such as interconnections, delays between cause and effect, and nonlinear relationships influence outcomes of interest. The initial questions subsequently shape the research design and approach, where systems mapping and computational modeling and simulation methods are often highly relevant. The chapter concludes with a discussion about the complementary and synergistic nature of complex systems and traditional research approaches.