{"id":1034,"date":"2018-03-22T19:23:05","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T19:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/?page_id=1034"},"modified":"2018-04-05T15:18:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T15:18:03","slug":"learningfrom","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pl-1034\"  class=\"panel-layout\" ><div id=\"pg-1034-0\"  class=\"panel-grid panel-no-style\" ><div id=\"pgc-1034-0-0\"  class=\"panel-grid-cell\" ><div id=\"panel-1034-0-0-0\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_mit-pf-wysiwyg widget_mit_pf_wysiwyg panel-first-child\" data-index=\"0\" ><h2 class=\"widget-title\">Learning from Evidence in a Complex World<\/h2><div class=\"textwidget\"><div class=\"page threecol\">\n<div class=\"wrapper1\">\n<div class=\"col2 contentcol\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div>\n<p>J. D. Sterman (2006) Learning from Evidence in a Complex World.\u00a0<em>American Journal of Public Health<\/em>, 96, 505-514.<\/p>\n<p>DOI:\u00a0http:\/\/doi.org\/10.2105\/AJPH.2005.066043<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Policies to promote public health and welfare often fail or worsen the problems they are intended to solve. Evidence-based learning should prevent such policy resistance, but learning in complex systems is often weak and slow. Complexity hinders our ability to discover the delayed and distal impacts of interventions, generating unintended \u201cside effects.\u201d Yet learning often fails even when strong evidence is available: common mental models lead to erroneous but selfconfirming inferences, allowing harmful beliefs and behaviors to persist and undermining implementation of beneficial policies.<\/p>\n<p>Here I show how systems thinking and simulation modeling can help expand the boundaries of our mental models, enhance our ability to generate and learn from evidence, and catalyze effective change in public health and beyond.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">For Access to This Paper<\/span>\u2014If you are a student or faculty at another institution and would like a final copy of this paper, please email my assistant Jocelyn using the button below. Jocelyn will send you a final version of the paper <strong>for your personal use only.<\/strong> When emailing, please include the title and DOI number of the paper you are requesting.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/mitsloan.mit.edu\/shared\/ods\/documents\/?DocumentID=4328\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Download a Pre-Final Paper<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><div id=\"panel-1034-0-0-1\" class=\"so-panel widget widget_mit_social_widget panel-last-child\" data-index=\"1\" ><h2 class=\"widget-title widget-title--eyebrow\">Request a final version of this paper<\/h2><ul class=\"social\"><li><a href=\"mailto:jcliment@mit.edu\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"vcex-social-link social-link-email\"  title=\"Email\"><span class=\"fa fa-envelope\"><\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learning from Evidence in a Complex World J. D. Sterman (2006) Learning from Evidence in a Complex World.\u00a0American Journal of Public Health, 96, 505-514. DOI:\u00a0http:\/\/doi.org\/10.2105\/AJPH.2005.066043 Abstract Policies to promote public health and welfare often fail or worsen the problems they are intended to solve. Evidence-based learning should prevent such policy resistance, but learning in complex [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1034","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.0 (Yoast SEO v25.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>- John Sterman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learning from Evidence in a Complex World J. D. Sterman (2006) Learning from Evidence in a Complex World.\u00a0American Journal of Public Health, 96, 505-514. DOI:\u00a0http:\/\/doi.org\/10.2105\/AJPH.2005.066043 Abstract Policies to promote public health and welfare often fail or worsen the problems they are intended to solve. Evidence-based learning should prevent such policy resistance, but learning in complex [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Sterman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-05T15:18:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/\",\"name\":\"- John Sterman\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-22T19:23:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-05T15:18:03+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/\",\"name\":\"John Sterman\",\"description\":\"MIT Personal Faculty\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"- John Sterman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_description":"Learning from Evidence in a Complex World J. D. Sterman (2006) Learning from Evidence in a Complex World.\u00a0American Journal of Public Health, 96, 505-514. DOI:\u00a0http:\/\/doi.org\/10.2105\/AJPH.2005.066043 Abstract Policies to promote public health and welfare often fail or worsen the problems they are intended to solve. Evidence-based learning should prevent such policy resistance, but learning in complex [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/","og_site_name":"John Sterman","article_modified_time":"2018-04-05T15:18:03+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/","url":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/","name":"- John Sterman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-03-22T19:23:05+00:00","dateModified":"2018-04-05T15:18:03+00:00","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/learningfrom\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/","name":"John Sterman","description":"MIT Personal Faculty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3170,"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1034\/revisions\/3170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitmgmtfaculty.mit.edu\/jsterman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}