Through ANSER’s work supporting the CDC’s Global Health Security Agenda, Frances Veasey and Lynne Clemens worked closely with Vietnam’s public health agencies in 2017 and 2018 to improve their nation’s response to outbreaks, epidemics, and public health crises. Since then, Vietnam has been internationally recognized for its effective response to COVID-19 over the first year of its emergence. During this presentation, Frances Veasey will combine this in-country experience with ANSER’s systems thinking capabilities to investigate the behaviors, underlying structures, and mental models that helped Vietnam achieve success during the first year of the global pandemic. This session will review the use of a systems thinking tool, the Iceberg Method, to understand how Vietnam’s unique context facilitated effective response and what we can learn to improve our response in the United States. The iceberg model also can be used for a variety of applications outside of public health, with this example demonstrating how its approach can be useful in designing interventions in any domain.
To view the lessons learned report refenced during the presentation: “Did Lessons Learned from SARS Save us From COVID-19?”