Driver Agent Review

Abstract

The problem of obesity has recently been reframed as part of the global syndemic-the co-occurring, interacting pandemics of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change that are driven by common underlying societal drivers. System science modeling approaches may help clarify how these shared drivers operate and the best ways to address them. This paper sought to identify the extent to which existing system dynamics and agent-based computational models of obesity offer insights into the common drivers of global epidemic. Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed databases provided access to peer-reviewed papers that were published up until July 2018. Threety-eight studies, representing 30 computational model types were included. It was evident that system dynamics has been used more frequently than agent-based models in the past decade. Most often, they focused on mechanisms and interventions that were socially-based and influenced by obesity. There was mixed usefulness in identifying the main drivers of the global symphony. The majority of models focused on Western settings and the obesity determinants that were close to the people, such as social circles and school environments. Models at macro-level and mesolevel are scarce in these settings.

Keywords: Global syndemic; agent-based modelling; obesity; system dynamics. Systematic review.

.Driver Agent Review