Where to after COVID-19? Systems thinking for a human-centred approach to pandemics

Whilst policymaking will always remain a highly political process, especially amidst crises, evidence-based pandemic management can benefit from adopting a socioecological perspective that integrates multi- and trans-disciplinary insights: from biology, biomedicine, mathematics, statistics, social and behavioural sciences, as well as the perspectives and experiences of non-scientific stakeholders. We make a case for an “integrated inter- and transdisciplinarity” that overcomes the typical additive nature of current interdisciplinary work and better captures the inherent complexity of public health and other public policy problems. We propose systems science and systems thinking approaches as a useful meta-theoretical, self-reflecting approach for such integration to take place. Enabled by systems thinking, the praxis of “integrated inter- and transdisciplinarity” allows for an understanding of public health crises in a human-centred socio-ecological perspective. This grounds more holistic policy responses, which by mobilising the whole of government and whole of society, put individuals, groups, governments and society at large in critical dialogue to co-produce and co-design interventions that address crises in all their physical, social, psychological, economic and political dimensions.