Lessons from complexity science for urban health and well-being

Abstract

From a complexity science perspective, urban health and well-being challenges emerge due to the complexity of urban systems. Adverse urban health outcomes emerge from failing to respond to that complexity by taking a systems approach in knowledge and action which would open opportunity spaces for human agents to create benefits which in turn would generate salutogenic health and well-being outcomes. Lessons learned from complexity science suggest that adverse urban health outcomes emerge from a poor understanding of their complexity and from not engaging with them in a transdisciplinary, integrated fashion. A conceptual framework is presented which combines systems models from the natural and social sciences and explains how opportunities for advancing health and well-being can be co-created. The framework demonstrates that taking a systems approach is a necessary cognitive response from learning the lessons of complexity science and from understanding that humans are an inextricable part of the systems they aim at understanding and managing. Such response is at the core of systems intelligence. The implications are far reaching for the science of urban health and well-being.

Keywords:

• Complexity
• urban health
• risk
• systems intelligence

Notes

1. Agency is a form of societal engagement and is about peoples’ ability to act on what they value and have reason to value. The concept of agency is in accordance to Amartya Sen’s capability approach and is about being free to act in pursuit of one’s values (Sen 1999, 1985).

2. For example, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, FAO, International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Save the Children.

3. Also known as bilharzia, is a parasitic disease caused by blood flukes (trematodes) of the genus Schistosoma. It is transmitted by contact with contaminated fresh water.

4. Adverse urban health outcomes are however not outcomes of intentional and intelligent design, rather of failures thereof. Consequently, the patterns of interconnectivity from which they emerge are not interconnected sufficiently or in ways to avoid them.