Faculty of Economics and Business, Access to Medicine Research Center, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Department of Pre-Clinical and Health Sciences, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Bridgetown, Barbados.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2024 Aug 21;22(1):115. doi: 10.1186/s12961-024-01201-y.
The aim of this study is to develop a systems thinking framework to describe the common complexities of childhood obesity in the Caribbean region and identify potential areas of intervention.
Group model building (GMB) is a form of systems science. Trained GMB facilitators in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago convened a group of multi-disciplinary stakeholders in a series of virtual meetings in 2021 to elaborate a hypothesis of the system driving childhood obesity represented by causal loop diagrams (CLD). Commonalities and differences between the CLDs from each island were identified and reconciled to create a synthesized CLD.
A single explanatory CLD across the islands was developed and includes nine reinforcing loops. These loops addressed the interconnected role of schools, policy, commercial determinants, community and the personal experience of the child in rising childhood obesity rates.
Despite differences across settings, there is a core system driving childhood obesity in the Caribbean, as described by stakeholders in GMB workshops. Policy solutions to the problem must be multi-faceted and multi-level to address the interlinked reinforcing loops of the complex system and reduce rates of childhood obesity.
本研究旨在构建一个系统思维框架，以描述加勒比地区儿童肥胖的常见复杂性，并确定潜在的干预领域。
群体模型构建（GMB）是系统科学的一种形式。在 2021 年，经过培训的 GMB 协调员在波多黎各、美属维尔京群岛、巴巴多斯和特立尼达和多巴哥召集了一组多学科利益相关者，通过一系列虚拟会议，用因果回路图（CLD）详细阐述了一个驱动儿童肥胖的系统假设。从每个岛屿的 CLD 中识别出共性和差异，并进行协调，以创建一个综合的 CLD。
在各个岛屿上开发了一个单一的解释性 CLD，其中包括九个增强回路。这些循环涉及学校、政策、商业决定因素、社区以及儿童个人经历在儿童肥胖率上升中的相互关联作用。
尽管各个环境存在差异，但正如 GMB 研讨会的利益相关者所描述的那样，有一个核心系统在驱动加勒比地区的儿童肥胖。解决这一问题的政策解决方案必须是多方面和多层次的，以解决复杂系统的相互关联的增强回路，并降低儿童肥胖率。
