Bringing Sectors Together in Da Nang, Vietnam: Participatory Systems Mapping.

The USAID-funded Building Healthy Cities (BHC) work in Da Nang, Vietnam, engaged 108 multi-sector stakeholders to gather qualitative data across two workshops and three citizen town halls from 2019 to 2021. These data were synthesized with the results from BHC's seven other activities in Da Nang to build systems maps. Contextual findings showed that multi-sector, multi-level participation and collaboration have been the key to moving the city toward their smart and livable city goals. Currently, citizen, nongovernmental organization, and private sector collaboration are low for many government sectors, which results in policy and programs that are mismatched to actual needs and therefore have less powerful impacts. When these policies and programs are implemented, they struggle to demonstrate strong benefits to these stakeholder groups, further decreasing participation. This is central to the systems map that BHC developed, and is expanded upon through additional patterns that fall within four main areas: management quality; vision and leadership; workforce capacity; and community engagement. Stakeholders found four key leverage points within this context that, if included in every action, could help overcome barriers. These leverage opportunities are: (1) investing at all levels; (2) improving function and innovation of information technology; (3) increasing participation and feedback; and (4) creating more responsive policy. As BHC concludes activities in Da Nang, local university students will be trained on systems mapping techniques to embed systems thinking skills into the next generation of workforce, and a set of recommendations will be developed to share with the government to act on these findings.

Participatory Systems Mapping for Municipal Prioritization and Planning.

Rapidly growing cities face new and compounding health challenges, leading governments and donors to seek innovative ways to support healthier, more resilient urban growth. One such approach is the systems mapping process developed by Engaging Inquiry (EI) for the USAID-funded Building Healthy Cities project (BHC) in four cities in Asia. This paper provides details on the theory and methods of the process. While systems mapping is not new, the approach detailed in this paper has been uniquely adapted to the purpose of municipal planning. Strategic stakeholder engagement, including participatory workshops with a diverse group of stakeholders, is at the core of this approach and led to deeper insights, greater buy-in, and shared understanding of the city's unique opportunities and challenges. This innovative mapping process is a powerful tool for defining municipal priorities within growing cities across the globe, where the situation is rapidly evolving. It can be used to provide evidence-based information on where to invest to gain the biggest impact on specific goals. This paper is part of a collection in this issue providing a detailed accounting of BHC's systems mapping approach across four project cities.

Designing for a Healthier Indore, India: Participatory Systems Mapping.

In Indore, India, BHC engaged 247 multi-sector stakeholders through a systems mapping approach to gather qualitative data across three workshops and four citizen town halls from 2018 to 2020. These data were synthesized with results from BHC's 18 other city activities to build a systems map and identify high-impact areas for engagement. Contextual findings showed a tension at the heart of Indore's growth-Indore's great success as a city has spurred rapid population growth. This growth creates pressure on municipal systems as population outpaces service delivery capacity. This is central to the systems map that BHC developed and is expanded upon through additional patterns that fall within four main domains: (1) leadership, governance, and financing; (2) essential service delivery and workforce; (3) information systems; and (4) community infrastructure and education. Stakeholders found three key leverage opportunities within this context that, if included in every action, could help overcome barriers. These opportunities are: (1) improving data quality, use, and integration; (2) supporting accountability to, and enforcement of, policies and regulations; and (3) increasing community engagement. Brought together through a better understanding of the key patterns driving system behavior from the context map and leverage opportunities, BHC was able to co-create, with stakeholders, seven "coherent actions" to move Indore to a healthier, more equitable state. When COVID-19 regulations ease, BHC and city officials will reconvene to finalize an implementation plan for these actions.

Creating a Vision for a Healthier Workforce Using a Systems-Based Approach.

CONTEXT: The public health system faces unprecedented challenges due to the pandemic, racism, health inequity, and the politicization of public health. At all levels of the system, the workforce is experiencing distress, burnout, safety issues, and attrition. Public health is being challenged to demonstrate and justify its impact and value, while also leveraging opportunities for learning and system strengthening. PROGRAM: To explore the current state and identify opportunities to strengthen the public health system, the Region 7 Midwestern Public Health Training Center (MPHTC), with support from Engaging Inquiry, embarked on a distinctive type of systems analysis, called "dynamic systems mapping." IMPLEMENTATION: This approach brought together diverse sectors of public health partners in the region to develop a rich contextual narrative and system-level understanding to highlight and align existing and emergent strengths, areas for growth, and tangible goals for the immediate- and long-term sustainability of local and regional health. EVALUATION: Focus groups and workshops were conducted with diverse practitioners to identify upstream causes and downstream effects of 11 key forces driving system behavior. These focus groups resulted in the development of a visual map that MPHTC is utilizing to identify opportunities for leverage, develop strategies to maximize the potential impact of these leverage points, as well as facilitate continuous learning. DISCUSSION: Public health utilization of systems mapping is a valuable approach to strengthening local and national system responses to current and future public health needs. Outcomes and lessons learned from the systems mapping process are discussed.

Designing for a Healthier Makassar, Indonesia: Participatory Systems Mapping.

In Makassar, Indonesia, the USAID-funded Building Healthy Cities (BHC) project engaged 240 multi-sector stakeholders to gather qualitative data across three workshops and two citizen town halls from 2019 to 2021. These data were synthesized with results from BHC's nine other Makassar activities to build maps of the current system and identify high-impact areas for engagement. Contextual findings showed that Makassar leadership has actively innovated and used new technology to improve the city, resulting in improved connectivity and responsiveness. However, this drive toward innovation has strained existing infrastructure and workforce capacity. When this strain fails to meet promised results, citizens are less likely to engage and support the innovations. This is central to the systems map that BHC developed, and is expanded upon through additional patterns that fall within four main areas: (1) leadership, governance, and financing; (2) infrastructure and workforce; (3) collaboration and data; and (4) community cohesion and awareness. Stakeholders found three key leverage points within this context that, if included in every action, could help overcome barriers. These leverage opportunities are: (1) increasing data-driven decision-making; (2) ensuring equitable policy and leadership; and (3) increasing community participation. By combining key patterns discovered in the Context Map with the leverage opportunities, BHC was able to co-create with stakeholders six "coherent actions" that can move Makassar to a healthier, "Sombere (kind-hearted and hospitable) and Smart City." BHC has been working with the city planning office to incorporate the map findings into its bottom-up planning processes and the 5-year mid-term plan for Makassar.

Bridging the Gap Between Transformative Practices and Traditional Public Health Approaches.

CONTEXT: The release of the 24/7 Wall Street publication in November 2018 labeling the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa, community as the worst city for Black Americans to live in the United States sparked conversations and calls to action across the community-from the kitchen table to the boardroom. It became clear that this was a critical moment for innovative leadership from public health. PROGRAM: To bring together these individual efforts, and diverse perspectives, toward deeper understanding and system transformation, Black Hawk County Public Health, with support from Engaging Inquiry, adopted a participatory action approach of dynamic system mapping and systemic strategy design. IMPLEMENTATION: Using participatory methodologies and tools for systems analysis, stakeholders developed a system map visualizing the patterns driving inequitable outcomes, but also the bright spots and resiliencies, identified and experienced across the community. This map, populated with local stories and data, represents a "theory of context," and offered a foundation of understanding and connectivity upon which high-impact opportunities for engagement could be identified and developed. By working across sectors and building on existing energy and resources present within the community, systemic strategies were designed to foster critical shifts toward a healthier community. EVALUATION: A developmental evaluation approach is applied throughout the mapping process to maximize rapid learning and adaption of a complex challenge when stakeholder engagement and trust building is essential. DISCUSSION: Participatory systems mapping shows promise as an adaptive approach to allow public health departments to go beyond the traditional roles of public health practice, to collaborate with nontraditional partners, and implement strategies, initiatives, and/or policies that explicitly address inequity and the social determinants of health. Adaptive strategies provide opportunities for the local public health system to identify community health improvement strategies that align with Public Health 3.0.