Abstract for: Bridging Systems Insights to Action: Supportive Elements in the Community-Based System Dynamics Process to Enact Change

A review article studying cross-sector community collectives that used system dynamics to address community-level health-related problems found that of 31 studied initiatives, only seven of them documented collective action taken as a result of the SD work (Cilenti et al. 2019). If a goal of using system dynamics is to have a community-level impact, then it is important to identify what elements are needed during the system dynamics process to help bridge systems insights into action. Catalyzing Communities Initiative is a multisite study that creates community-academic partnerships and uses community-based system dynamics to help community partners better understand and address child health and nutrition over time, with the goal of community-led action and change taking place. In this submission, we explore three important factors that we have found to be supportive in our system dynamics process to assist communities in moving from systems insights to collective action. These factors include elements of community partner leadership, committee composition & involvement, and communication & dissemination.