Public health professionals must work across different sectors and collaborate with other professionals and community groups to improve health outcomes. Often, these stakeholders have competing...

Public health professionals must work across different sectors and collaborate with other professionals and community groups to improve health outcomes. Often, these stakeholders have competing interests as well as conflicting ideas about health and how to meet public health needs and outcomes. Stakeholders may not even share the same values related to improving public health. In some cases, using a systems thinking or intersectoral approach may pose many challenges for implementation.
To prepare for this assessment, choose one public health issue (e.g. obesity, a chronic disease) in a country of your choice for which it is obvious that a systems thinking approach has not been, or is not being, applied. Then in approximately 1000 words:
Describe the public health issue.  Explain the roles of stakeholders, both within the health system and in other sectors in addressing this issue.  Drawing on research and media reports, explain the obstacles that prevent the application of a systems thinking approach to this issue.  Based on the literature, offer suggestions (e.g. new governance arrangements) for how a systems thinking approach could be applied to this issue.