Making Sense of Complexity: Systems Thinking and Modelling in Health

A seminar exploring how health systems are complex—and so are the social and behavioural forces that shape outcomes

Health systems are complex, and so are the socio-behavioural processes that shape patient outcomes. Yet many clinical, public health, and policy models still treat these forces as static background factors rather than dynamic processes and feedback-driven systems.

This seminar introduces key systems thinking concepts and system dynamics modelling techniques that allow simulation of the complexity of real‑world health challenges. For public health, medicine, clinical researchers and practitioners, such simulation models offer a rigorous way to capture health-system complexity, uncovering systemic drivers, and design interventions that work with the complexity of real-world health systems.

Drawing on examples from current modelling projects—including diet shifts, adolescent obesity, and health‑workforce dynamics—this session demonstrates how socio‑behavioural determinants can be represented explicitly in simulation models. These approaches help identify leverage points, anticipate unintended consequences, and design interventions that align with how health systems actually behave. Supporting more effective intervention design and more realistic expectations for system improvement across health and related domains.

This session is ideal for clinicians, public health practitioners, health‑service managers, researchers, and policy professionals seeking more robust ways to understand complex problems and improve decision‑making.

Format

45 min presentation followed by 15 minute Q&A

This is a face to face seminar. Please email qrhirc@health.qld.gov.au if you are unable to attend in person and would like a Microsoft Teams link because .

For all other enquiries or pre-questions please contact Dr Adam Hulme a.hulme@uq.edu.au

About the Presenter

Jefferson Rajah is a PhD Research Fellow in the System Dynamics Group at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is a computational system dynamics modeller and a systems thinking practitioner who focuses on understanding how socio-behavioural processes shape outcomes in complex social, ecological, and health systems. Funded by the EU Horizon programme, his PhD research examines the social determinants of diet shifts and implements them into large-scale simulation models to inform demand-side climate policy. Jefferson is passionate about participatory modelling, working with stakeholders to translate real-world stories into dynamic models that reveal leverage points for social change.