The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to solicit applications to support multi-disciplinary scientific teams proposing research using systems science approaches to address persistent public health challenges. Systems science refers to multi-level methodologies addressing complex behavioral and social phenomena. This initiative encourages applications for both basic and applied research, including methodological and measurement development, with a focus on human behavioral and/or social science. This initiative also seeks to promote interdisciplinary collaboration among health researchers and experts in mathematical modelling.
Systems science is an interdisciplinary field comprising methodological approaches that address dynamic connections between a system’s structure and its behavior over time. “Systems science methodologies” is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of methodologies including, but not limited to, agent-based modeling, microsimulation, system dynamics modeling, network analysis, discrete event analysis, Markov modeling, econometric modeling, engineering methods, and a variety of other dynamic modeling and simulation approaches.
Systems science methodologies are valuable because they can address complex behavioral and social phenomena. These models and other novel analytic tools can be used to elucidate behavioral and social pathways and relationships and to assess population-level health policy and behavioral intervention options. By facilitating the modeling of social and behavioral determinants of health, systems science models advance scientific understanding of the underlying factors contributing to persistent public health problems.
This notice applies to due dates on or after June 5, 2021 and subsequent receipt dates through May 7, 2024.
NOT-HD-20-032