Mapping Opioid Addiction

Systems Thinking

4 weeks | Spring 2019 

Understanding the Problem

Brief

Work in groups of 6 to break down and map  a "wicked problem." After understanding the problem, develop interventions that could be implement to help "solve" the problem. 

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Overview

Pennsylvania is one of the central states in which the opioid addiction crisis exists. The purpose of this map was to understand the different stakeholders and how their actions and goals have perpetuated the issues. Then we created interventions at the different level of the stakeholders, intervening in the system at different levels. The final poster was featured at the RSD8 Systems Thinking Conference. 

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Skills

Systems Thinking, Mapping Complex Systems, Developing Systems interventions

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Collaborators 

Annalisa Pao, Evelyn DiSalvo, Jamie Park, Yogini Borkar, Jina Lee

The process of mapping the problem involved understanding the stakeholders and their goals. We then broke down the specific strategies that they employed in order to achieve those goals and then the specific tactics they used to carry out their strategies. Due to the depth of the complexity of the issue, my group decided to center our map around the stakeholders. In addition, this problem is inherently created by the stakeholders, so breaking down the problem through their perspectives was crucial in our understanding of places that we could potentially intervene in. 

Mess Map Drafts

The Final Map

RSD8 Conference