Using systems thinking to assess the functioning of an "Age-Friendly City" governance network in Australia

Tracey Ma; Evelyne de Leeuw; Katrina Proust; Barry Newell; Kathleen Clapham; Conrad Kobel; Rebecca Ivers

doi:10.1093/heapro/daac076

Using systems thinking to assess the functioning of an "Age-Friendly City" governance network in Australia

Health Promot Int. 2022 Aug 1;37(4):daac076. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daac076.

Authors

Tracey Ma¹, Evelyne de Leeuw², Katrina Proust³, Barry Newell³, Kathleen Clapham⁴, Conrad Kobel⁴, Rebecca Ivers¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
² Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluation (CHETRE), UNSW, SWSLHD, and Ingham Institute, Liverpool, NSW, Australia.
³ Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Acton, ACT, Australia.
⁴ Australian Health Services Research Institute (AHSRI), University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.

PMID: 35950893
DOI: 10.1093/heapro/daac076

Abstract

Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) is a framework for promoting healthy ageing through local actions. We use systems thinking to assess potential outcomes of actions to support older people's mobility, undertaken within an AFC commitment in Greater Sydney. Interviews with 20 informants involved in providing space, infrastructure, or services that affect how older people get around were analysed using causal loop diagrams (CLDs). Four approaches to support older people's mobility were identified and situated to the Multiple Governance Framework: land use, open and public space, supplementary transport, and community transport. Analysis revealed potential for unwanted consequences associated with each, which can be generalised into three generic potential outcomes for other jurisdictions to consider. A recommendation from this research is for policy actors to examine feedback interactions between actions so that they can foresee a wider range of outcomes and take defensive action against those unwanted. By situating CLDs within the Multiple Governance Framework, this research not only identifies what to look for, in terms of potential outcomes, but also where to look, in terms of the level of decision-making. This research offers a new way to assess the functioning of AFC governance networks by their collective outcomes and challenges the standards for the evaluation of AFC.

Keywords: health promoting environments; healthy public policy; implementation; intersectoral partnerships; systems thinking.

Plain language summary

This study uses systems thinking to assess policy actions for supporting older people’s transportation mobility in Greater Sydney. These policy actions pertain to land use, open and public space, supplementary transport, and community transport. Analysis revealed the potential for unwanted consequences, which result from different actions undermining one another, systemic constraints, and failure to account for small, but important, details.

MeSH terms

Aged
Australia
Cities
Humans
Systems Analysis*

Grants and funding

UNSW Scientia Scholarship Scheme