Mental and simulated models in health policy making

Abstract

Models are approximations. We make mental models all the time. These mental models start the process but it does not end there. Whether they on their own are helpful is another story altogether. System thinking, by way of formal models, offers policymakers’ microworlds to offset attribution errors and faulty sense making that can lead policy astray. This chapter offers a brief descriptive of simulation as applications of system thinking education to state policymaking, system dynamics modeling of prescription opiate abuse as well as a look at avatar-like simulation of health-care data based on mathematical models for policy.