Foresight and Futures Activities for Public Health and Epidemiology

My involvement with epidemiology and public health leadership may be laid entirely at the feet of Prof. Bebe Selwyn and her partner in revolution, Prof. Beth Quill, both faculty of the University of Texas School of Public Health. Bebe is both colleague and former student, as in her sabbatical year she chose to audit the entire Masters degree in Studies of the Future at the University of Houston - Clear Lake; having insightfully perceived that epidemiology and futures studies have much in common. Her enthusiasm led to discussions with Beth, who had just finished a year with CDC's Institute for Public Health Leadership, and who was working closely with the National Public Health Leadership Development Network.

Our association resulted in my keynoting and facilitating the 2001 conference of the National Public Health Leadership Development Network (slides below), and more importantly, in the design and teaching of a graduate seminar in public health leadership at UT's School of Public Health. The syllabus for that course, as well as lecture slides on leadership, basic systems analysis concepts, and the public health leadership incasting exercise, are available below.

My earliest exploration of foresight and health actually came at the behest of Ms. Ayesha Dost, a planner with the NHS in the UK. She had just completed an annotated survey of foresight/forecasting related research methods, and asked me to prepare a workshop incorporating that survey into a futures framework. The resulting workshop was presented on 10 November 1997 as part of the King's Fund European Symposium, "Health Futures: Tools to Create Tomorrow's Health System," (London, 10-11 November 1997). The script essay for that presentation, "The Foresight Fan," is available below.

What, you ask, is the relationship between foresight and epidemiology, or public health leadership? Foresight -- sensitivity to emerging change and its effects and impacts -- and vision -- the articulation of values and goals as a preferred future -- are the heart of leadership. If you doubt that, go reacquaint yourself with the works on leadership I have annotated in my bibliography. MacGregor Burns' definition of transformative leadership hinges on leaders' abilities to communicate a compelling vision. But foresight is even more critical to issues of epidemiology and public health, because we want not just to contain and prevent diseases, but to preserve and ensure health. The "Healthy Communities" initiative in public health and medicine (two *very* distinct endeavours, I have been taught!) has in one sense articulated a transformational vision; but achieving it will mean anticipating the emerging health impacts of change prior to their generation. That anticipatory effort requires foresight, which in turn means understanding systemic interrelationships and learning to identify sources of potential change: skills of foresight and future studies.

• PH 3998/2998, Public Health Leadership: course syllabus.
• Overview of Leadership: Theoretical Approaches and Key Concepts
  • Slides (html)
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• An Introduction to Foresight and Futures Studies; lecture for PH 3998/2998
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• Basic Systems Analysis Terms and Concepts, a lecture for PH3998/2998
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• "Foresight and Leadership: Skills that Make Change Exhilarating," National Public Health Leadership Development Network, 25 April 2001
  • Slides (html)
  • Download the slides (warning: large files): Acrobat .pdf or Quicktime movie.
    
• "The Foresight Fan: Systematic Approaches to Foresight," a presentation and workshop for the NHS and the King's Fund