GCPH Seminar Series 9 Lecture 3 - Dr Joe Ravetz

Public health: exploring complex inter-connected problems, and creating complex inter-connected solutions

Glasgow and similar places have long experience of success and failure in population health issues: but so many problems seem to be complex and inter-connected, going around in circles and needing skills and resources which aren’t there.

This session explored the cycle of ill-health, and the multiple factors within this such as diet, unemployment, insecurity, housing, education, welfare and the health system itself. We used the Synergy Foresight method – first to explore and map the trends and causes of the cycle, and then to develop policy ideas which are also complex and inter-connected.  The method is helped by a new digital tool, the Synergy Forum, which runs in parallel to the discussions. 

The result is a concept which is called “Urban 3.0” – a city which is not about ‘winner-takes-all’ economics or ‘first-past-the-post’ politics. The Urban 3.0 is more about bringing together the different parts – public sector, enterprise, communities – into common pathways for the transition towards healthier, more inclusive and liveable cities.