Infectious Diseases of Poverty (Sep 2017)

Systems thinking in combating infectious diseases

  • Shang Xia,
  • Xiao-Nong Zhou,
  • Jiming Liu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40249-017-0339-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 1
pp. 1 – 7

Abstract

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Abstract The transmission of infectious diseases is a dynamic process determined by multiple factors originating from disease pathogens and/or parasites, vector species, and human populations. These factors interact with each other and demonstrate the intrinsic mechanisms of the disease transmission temporally, spatially, and socially. In this article, we provide a comprehensive perspective, named as systems thinking, for investigating disease dynamics and associated impact factors, by means of emphasizing the entirety of a system’s components and the complexity of their interrelated behaviors. We further develop the general steps for performing systems approach to tackling infectious diseases in the real-world settings, so as to expand our abilities to understand, predict, and mitigate infectious diseases.

Keywords