Beyond disciplines and fields

Here we want to explore how the complexity frame of reference can help us to understand a domain which in intellectual terms has been informed by the applied social sciences since the development of a systematic interest in public health, that is, the health of social systems, as opposed to the health of individual human beings which was the historical focus of attention of the physician. We do this in the second edition in a very specific context – that of the world system in the grip of a pandemic infectious disease, COVID-19, and with the future being a context in which COVID moves from being a pandemic to an endemic – always present or coming back again – part of the global ecology in which human beings exist in relation to the natural world. The chapter begins with an overview of complexity in relation to health in societies which have undergone the health transformation. It considers ‘the patient as complex system’ complexity-informed approach to both research and clinical practice. Then it turns to a review of public health where implicit complex understanding has always been important and where this is now becoming explicit. Health and social care constitute a complex system of enormous importance in the 21st century and we continue with a review of how to use the complexity frame of reference to understand the issues this system faces in general. Finally, the chapter looks at the impact of COVID and reviews the complexity-informed literature which has addressed this system shock not only to health systems but to governance as a whole.

Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Sociology · Critical Realism in Sociology · Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies · Engineering · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy