Chughtai Saad, Blanchet Karl
Health Policy, Planning, Finance (LSHTM/LSE). ApaJee Trust, Nowshera, KPK, Pakistan.
Karl Blanchet, Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Health Policy Plan. 2017 May 1;32(4):585-594. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czw159.
Research across the formal, natural and social sciences has greatly expanded our knowledge about complex systems in recent decades, informing a broadly inclusive, cross-disciplinary conceptual framework referred to as Systems Thinking (ST). Its use in public health is rapidly increasing, although there remains a poor understanding of how these ideas have been imported, adapted and elaborated by public health research networks worldwide.
This review employed a mixed methods approach to narrate the development of ST in public health. Tabulated results from a literature search of the Web of Science Core Collection database were used to perform a bibliometric analysis and literature review. Annual publication counts and citation scores were used to analyse trends and identify popular and potential 'landmark' publications. Citation network and co-authorship network diagrams were analysed to identify groups of articles and researchers in various network roles.
Our search string related to 763 publications. Filtering excluded 208 publications while citation tracing identified 2 texts. The final 557 publications were analysed, revealing a near-exponential growth in literature over recent years. Half of all articles were published after 2010 with almost a fifth (17.8%) published in 2014. Bibliographic analysis identified five distinct citation and co-authorship groups homophilous by common geography, research focus, inspiration or institutional affiliation.
As a loosely related set of sciences, many public health researchers have developed different aspects of ST based on their underlying perspective. Early studies were inspired by Management-related literature, while later groups adopted a broadly inclusive understanding which incorporated related Systems sciences and approaches.
ST is an increasingly popular subject of discussion within public health although its understanding and approaches remain unclear. Briefly tracing the introduction and development of these ideas and author groups in public health literature may provide clarity and opportunities for further learning, research and development.
近几十年来，形式科学、自然科学和社会科学领域的研究极大地拓展了我们对复杂系统的认识，形成了一个广泛包容的跨学科概念框架，即系统思维（ST）。它在公共卫生领域的应用正在迅速增加，尽管对于这些理念如何被全球公共卫生研究网络引入、调整和细化，人们仍然了解不足。
本综述采用混合方法来阐述系统思维在公共卫生领域的发展。利用对科学引文索引核心合集数据库进行文献检索得到的列表结果进行文献计量分析和文献综述。年度发表量和被引分数用于分析趋势，并识别热门和潜在的“标志性”出版物。通过分析引文网络和共同作者网络图，来识别处于不同网络角色的文章和研究人员群体。
我们的搜索词共关联到763篇出版物。筛选排除了208篇出版物，同时通过引文追踪确定了2篇文献。最终对557篇出版物进行了分析，结果显示近年来文献数量几乎呈指数增长。所有文章中有一半是在2010年之后发表的，其中近五分之一（17.8%）发表于2014年。文献分析确定了五个不同的引文和共同作者群体，这些群体因共同的地域、研究重点、灵感来源或机构隶属关系而具有同质性。
作为一组联系松散的学科，许多公共卫生研究人员基于各自的基本观点，对系统思维的不同方面进行了拓展。早期研究受到与管理相关文献的启发，而后来的群体则采用了更具包容性的理解，纳入了相关的系统科学和方法。
系统思维在公共卫生领域是一个越来越热门的讨论话题，但其理解和方法仍不明确。简要追溯这些理念和作者群体在公共卫生文献中的引入和发展情况，可能会为进一步的学习、研究和发展提供清晰的思路和机会。
