Short Course #3: Applied Systems Science for Equity and Injury and Violence Prevention

Accelerating equity necessitates elevating and integrating empirical evidence, practice-based evidence, and lived experience into our research, practice, and policies. The success of injury and violence prevention (IVP) is predicated on multisectoral collaboration; yet facilitating a process that includes rigor and allows for the development of trust, consensus building, and developing a shared language across diverse sectors (e.g., law enforcement, school system, hospitals, universities) is difficult.

Systems thinking is an approach that underscores the value of diverse perspectives to understand the social and structural drivers of an outcome of interest. Two helpful systems tools to achieve this are group model building (GMB) and causal loop diagramming (CLD). GMB is a qualitative, collaborative, systems thinking method that allows participants to collectively discuss complex problems and build resulting qualitative and quantitative models describing interrelationships among multilevel factors driving the problems over time. The collaborative nature of GMB allows for cultural responsiveness to be incorporated into the discussions. The discussions, which reference data and lived experience, are then translated into qualitative CLDs to identify potential intervention points to prevent and disrupt IVP.

Through a mixture of hands-on learning and didactic presentation, this course will teach participants how to use systems thinking to engage diverse perspectives in their efforts to achieve collective goals of equity and IVP. More specifically, participants will learn and apply the fundamentals of GMB and collectively construct a CLD.

Instructors: Belinda-Rose Young, Sable Watson, University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center

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SAVIR 2025 Annual Conference