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Designing for Health Promotion, Social Innovation, and Complexity: The CoNEKTR Model for Wicked Problems

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Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health

Abstract

Global health care and promotion in the twenty-first century faces challenges posed by aging populations, mass migration, environmental threats, and the rise of new types of infectious diseases; issues that are interconnected, dynamic in nature, and without precedent. These are commonly calledwicked problems: ones that are complex, ill formulated, “joined-up”, confusing, and require multi-party collaboration to address [1]. Wicked or complex problems are resistant to the linear and simple solutions sets that are often employed in health systems that typically come with a push towards models of best practice and evidence-based medicine [2, 3]. While these solution sets demonstrate utility in certain areas pertaining to healthcare, they typically fail when applied to health promotion and population health [4] which commonly deal with multi-causal, contextually bound, and dynamic problems. It is for this type of problem space that complexity science and systems thinking are most appropriate [5]. In terms of action, it is often the place frequented by designers [6].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College Street, Room 586, Toronto, ON, M5T3M7, Canada

    Cameron D. Norman Ph.D. & Andrea L. Yip M.P.H.

  2. CENSE Research + Design, 757-155 Dalhousie Street, Toronto, ON, M5B2P7, Canada

    Cameron D. Norman Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Cameron D. Norman Ph.D.
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  2. Andrea L. Yip M.P.H.
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Correspondence to Cameron D. Norman Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of General Practice, Monash University, PO Box 3010, Wamberal, 2260, New South Wales, Australia

    Joachim P. Sturmberg

  2. Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 1212 222, Chicago, 60654, Illinois, USA

    Carmel M. Martin

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Norman, C.D., Yip, A.L. (2013). Designing for Health Promotion, Social Innovation, and Complexity: The CoNEKTR Model for Wicked Problems. In: Sturmberg, J., Martin, C. (eds) Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4998-0_34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4998-0_34

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