A Systems Science Approach to Urban Health

Urban populations are complex systems characterized by discontinuities, emergence, reciprocities, and feedback. In many respects, systems science approaches are directly suited to the study of urban health, affording us an opportunity to think about the evolution of urban populations and the complexity of behavior in cities that ultimately shapes population health. The authors discuss the concept of feedback loops that can be self-reinforcing or self-correcting. Because individual elements and feedback loops within systems are not established and maintained in isolation, they often interact with each other. Interactions among these feedback loops produce an emergent system behavior that cannot be explained by an understanding of the individual elements alone. This dynamic behavior persists over time and adapts to changing conditions. This chapter provides an introduction to systems science with reference to how it may influence our understanding of urban health.