The Narrow Path and the Broad Path: Systems Thinking in and for Public Health 

31 March 2026

Communities Working Together Winter Seminar Series | 23 January 2026 
Dr Helen Wilding, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Stirling | Dr Erica Gadsby, University of Stirling 

Our January seminar brought together Dr Helen Wilding — Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Stirling, who also works as associate lecturer in systems thinking in practice at the Open University — and Dr Erica Gadsby, associate professor of public health and programme director of the online MPH at the University of Stirling, for a session based on a paper they had written together on systems thinking in and for public health. 

The broad path and the narrow path 

Helen and Erica’s paper is built around the image of a broad and a narrow path. On the narrow path, the focus is on reducing specific diseases or risks. On the broad path, in Erica’s words, the aim shifts towards “the social, economic, environmental and political conditions that shape our health and wellbeing” — and the alleviation of inequalities rather than the management of individual risk. Helen and Erica are clear that the two are not opposites; the narrow sits within the broader. What they suggest, however, is that in practice most systems are structured in ways that favour the narrower approach — and that the conditions in which practitioners work make it hard to stay on the broad path, even when that is where they want to be. 

The role of systems thinking 

On the narrow path, Erica and Helen suggest, systems thinking tends to be used mainly as what Erica calls “an analytical technology” — a way of mapping complexity in order to design better interventions. On the broader path, they argue, it plays a different role. In Erica’s words, it functions “more as a kind of process of collective enquiry that supports sense-making and reflection and responsible action in situations that are essentially uncertain and contested and evolving.” The distinction matters, as Erica puts it, because “a key difference between the narrow and broad paths is not just the tools being employed, but also the role that systems ideas are being asked to play.” It could be seen, in part, that on the narrow path systems thinking helps you solve the problem better; on the broad path it helps you ask whether you are solving the right problem in the first place. 

The conversation in Argyll and Bute 

Polls running throughout the session invited participants to reflect on which path tended to dominate in their own context. Most identified with the broad path in terms of their intentions — but the discussion that followed was honest about the gap between intention and reality. As Helen described it, “we might start out with all these big ambitions, but somehow the conditions around us aren’t such that that broad path maintains its broadness.” What the room recognised was that this is not primarily a question of will, but of conditions — and that, as Helen put it, “sometimes you have to focus on changing the conditions so that then you can change the way you work.” 

Watch the full recording here:

This session formed part of the Communities Working Together Winter Seminar Series, a programme of learning exploring how we can work together more effectively to improve health and wellbeing in Argyll and Bute.