Using Systems Science to Inform Population Health Strategies in Local Health Departments: A Case Study in San Antonio, Texas.

Objectives: Because of state and federal health care reform, local health departments play an increasingly prominent role leading and coordinating disease prevention programs in the United States. This case study shows how a local health department working in chronic disease prevention and management can use systems science and evidence-based decision making to inform program selection, implementation, and assessment; enhance engagement with local health systems and organizations; and possibly optimize health care delivery and population health.

Methods: The authors built a systems-science agent-based simulation model of diabetes progression for the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, a local health department, to simulate health and cost outcomes for the population of San Antonio for a 20-year period (2015-2034) using 2 scenarios: 1 in which hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) values for a population were similar to the current distribution of values in San Antonio, and the other with a hypothetical 1-percentage-point reduction in HbA1c values.