Critical Incidents are an important concept within a systems science approach to implementing, maintaining, scaling up and sustaining programs. An article in Volume 232, 2019 of Social Science used CI to describe and understand how critical incidents or junctures in the implementation of s multi-intervention school physical activity program. The analysis revealed 39 critical incidents in the trial. " The "Let's Move It” (LMI) randomized trial evaluated a theory-based whole school system intervention aiming to increase physical activity (PA) of adolescents attending vocational schools. This article serves two main purposes: to describe how to use the critical incident technique (CIT) to conduct in qualitative process evaluation to identify events, including intervention elements, which LMI trial participants perceived to enable or support behavior change.The CIT seems a promising approach for directing analysis towards potentially crucial intervention elements as described by the participants themselves..." Read more...

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #4, 2015 of Public Administration Review helps us to understand one aspect of the decision-making processes that occur in professional bureaucracies such as health, education or other ministries/systems. The article examines advice networks and the role that structures, internal competition and Individual attributes play in shaping those networks and the advice. The authors summarize their work: "Interpersonal networks are increasingly important for organizational learning and performance. However, little is known about how these networks emerge. In this article, exponential random graph models are employed to explore the underlying processes of advice network formation in 15 organizations. The author examines the influence of (1) structural effects (reciprocity, transitivity, multiplexity), (2) actor attribute effects (job function, tenure, education, self-efficacy), and (3) peer competition. Results suggest that employees rely more on reciprocity, closure, and similarity in job function than on peer expertise or status when seeking advice. In addition, employees who perceive greater levels of competition with peers are significantly less likely to both seek and provide advice. As public organizations look to private sector strategies that promote internal competition to improve efficiency and accountability, public managers need to be aware of the negative implications those strategies can have on interpersonal networks and organizational learning." In school health promotion and social development we have traditionally ignored the systems above schools, even though we know that eventually and inevitably, educators and nurses in schools will need to report back and ask for resources from these agencies, ministries and systems. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  The use of ecological analysis of the over-lapping and inter-acting influences of individual, family, neighbourhood, school and larger community on behaviour and health status is now well-accepted in health promotion research. The ISHN has a version of this thinking that we developed with several researchers. However, it is very difficult to sort out the relative impact of these various layers. Indeed, the more "proximal" and "distal" influences are likely to vary for different individuals, at different times in their lives and events. An article in Issue #11, 2015 of Public Health Nutrition describes the relative contributions of these layers of the Social Ecological Model (SEM) when examining childhood obesity. A randomized telephone survey conducted in 2009–2010 collected information on parental perceptions of their neighbourhoods, and household, parent and child demographic characteristics. Parents provided measured height and weight data for their children. Geocoded data were used to calculate proximity of a child’s residence to food and physical activity outlets. Multiple logistic regression models were estimated to determine the joint contribution of elements within each layer of the SEM as well as the relative contribution of each layer. Layers of the SEM representing parental perceptions of their neighbourhoods, parent demographics and neighbourhood characteristics made the strongest contributions to predicting whether a child was overweight or obese. Layers of the SEM representing food and physical activity environments made smaller, but still significant, contributions to predicting children’s weight status. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  A special issue (#5-6, 2015) of The Journal of Early Adolescence uses different measures to understand the early adolescents’ experience in schools. The introduction noted that "We are particularly interested in measures with direct application—providing actionable data to teachers, principals, parents, school counselors, or the students themselves, in ways that promote social-emotional and academic learning. In this introduction, we highlight the ways in which articles in this special issue offer rigorous, relevant, and feasible approaches to this measurement work". The next two articles examined the non-classroom settings within the school, hallways, cafeterias and school yards and measured items such as the density of student gatherings, verbal noise and staff perceptions, all of which were found to be significant. In the schoolyard, the researcher suggested a much greater focus on non-social students who were excluded from activities. My only question, a serious one, was whether the study included the bathrooms in the schools. Note: In the ISHN complex, ecological and systems-based model depicting the school environment, we do depict these various sub-settings within the school. Read more>>