Community and programmatic factors influencing effective use of system dynamic models

Despite knowledge of factors that enable effective system dynamics modeling and organizational change, real‐life application of these tools in community settings remains challenging and often produces mixed results. We undertook a two‐part evaluation of early community use of the ReThink Health Dynamics Model (RTH model). The RTH model is a realistic, but simplified, portrait of a regional health system that supports multisector planning and strategy design. We assessed the contextual characteristics and implementation processes that promoted or undermined effective engagement with the model in five pilot sites. These learnings were used to refine a community readiness framework (Elements Affecting Modeling Use) that was then used to select and design a sixth community engagement. We use the evaluation results to assess the value of this organizing framework to identify communities ready for engagement with validated system dynamics models. Enabling better community–model matches will accelerate model adoption and health system transformation. © 2018 The Authors System Dynamics Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of System Dynamics Society