Applying Systems Thinking Approaches to Address Preventive Health Factors through Public Parks and Recreation Agencies

Within the United States parks and recreation agencies (P&R) manage public facilities, spaces, lands, and recreation programs. Public health (PH) evidence has increasingly pointed to local public P&R agencies as critical for promoting preventive health. Programs and strategies are available, but most P&R agencies have limited resources and lack local knowledge on which to base actions. However, the research base is growing. The global research question has shifted from asking IF P&R agencies can positively affect PH factors, to HOW they can best do so with limited resources.This research adapted a systems theory approach to how local public P&R agencies are addressing health factors. Methods included a literature review along with iterative exploration through a three-stage Delphi panel study with 17 P&R agency Expert Panelists in the U.S and Canada. Panelists were identified through a waterfall selection process. Each had at least three years of senior administration experience with interest in addressing PH factors.The study explored which preventive factors appear to be most modifiable by P&R. Results indicated increased physical activity, improved nutrition, enhanced safety or perception of safety, increased social and parental engagement, improved transportation and access to locations (especially nature), and cessation or reduced overconsumption of tobacco and alcohol. However, the priority of factors varies by community, and the continuing challenge is determining the priority of the factors for agencies and their partners to address. Community-specific data are not typically readily available to P&R agencies. Programs, strategies, internal methods, policies, and documents utilized by agencies were collected. Thirty-one related national initiatives (programs) were identified and ranked by the panelists.Key common strategies for P&R were identified. Results indicated a need to focus strategies on leadership and adequate funding to create a strong organizational culture of systematic assessment for addressing PH through allocation of P&R staff and financial resources. Systems thinking analysis and strategies can improve outcomes for cultural ethics of inclusion and equity, equitable access to assets and programs, collaboration with other partners, utilization of crime prevention and environmental design strategies, increased health promotions and education, and centralized tracking and evaluation of feasible measures.Implications for research include needs for additional validation and dissemination of research, evidence-based tools, and proven methods. There continues to be a strong need to help address gaps in knowledge transfer between research and practice realms. Management implications suggest methods for practice to enhance systems-thinking approaches for better preventive health outcomes through P&R in communities.

Problems of Formation of System Thinking in Modern Russian Education

The construction of new, market-based economic relations in Russia in the early 90s of the last century was accompanied by a radical transformation of the education system to the Bologna standard. At the same time, Western scientists - teachers drew attention to the work on the cognitive development of the child by L.S. Vygotsky, the theory of developmental education by P.Ya. Galperin, the theory of inventive problem solving by G.S. Altshuller and the results of research by other scientists providing the formation of systems thinking in Soviet education. The article shows that the documents regulating the development of Russian education include the formation of systematic and critical thinking in students, but in practice this is not always implemented. The directions of transformation of the Russian education system since the beginning of building market relations in the 90s of the last century are identified as the cause of the current situation. The formation of systems thinking in higher education should consider the peculiarities of the age dynamics of adults. The most developed figurative and verbal thinking among students makes it possible to use the teaching methods of V.F. Shatalov, which reduces the time for studying educational materials by more than 30 times in comparison with classical teaching methods.

A critical realist approach to systems thinking in evaluation

Pawson and Tilley’s acknowledgment of programs embedded in multiple social systems has gained little traction in realist synthesis and evaluation practice. A practice focusing on fairly closed systems—explaining how programs work and do not work—has emerged. This article negotiates the boundaries of knowledge pertinent to have in program design and evaluation from a realist perspective. It highlights critical realism as another possible response to systems thinking in evaluation. Moving one level up a program, it theorizes about social structures, mechanisms, and causes operating in a complex system within which an education-to-work program is nested. Three implications of the approach are highlighted: it foregrounds the relational nature of social, psychological, and programmatic structures and mechanisms; enables policymakers to develop a broader understanding of structures needed to support a program; and enables program architects to ascertain how a planned program might assimilate and adapt to social structures and mechanisms already established in a context.