The history of public health has focused on direct relationships between problems and
solutions: vaccinations against diseases ad campaigns targeting risky behaviors. But the
accelerating pace and mounting intricacies of our lives are challenging the field to find new
scientific methods for studying community health. The complexities of place (COP) approach is
emerging as one such promising method. Place and Health as Complex Systems demonstrates how COP
works making an empirical case for its use in for designing and implementing interventions.
This brief resource reviews the defining characteristics of places as dynamic and evolving
social systems rigorously testing them as well as the COP approach itself. The study of
twenty communities within one county in the Midwest combines case-based methods and complexity
science to determine whether COP improves upon traditional statistical methods of public health
research. Its conclusions reveal strengths and limitations of the approach immediate
possibilities for its use and challenges regarding future research. Included in the coverage:
Characteristics of places and the complexities of place approach. The Definitional Test of
Complex Systems. Case-based modeling using the SACS toolkit. Methods maps and measures used
in the study. Places as nodes within larger networks. Places as power-based conflicted
negotiations. Place and Health as Complex Systems brings COP into greater prominence in public
health research and is also valuable to researchers in related fields such as demography
health geography community health urban planning and epidemiology.
