Investigating the Diffusion of Agent‐based Modelling and System Dynamics Modelling in Population Health and Healthcare Research

Abstract

System dynamics modelling (SDM) applications in health research began to appear in 1972 while agent-based modelling (ABM) applications first appeared in 1995, but their applications have increased dramatically over the last decade. This study examines the diffusion patterns of these two approaches and the main driving factors. We conducted a systematic analysis of 653 journal articles published from 1972 to 2014 that employed two approaches in health research and found that over the last few years, there has been a rapid increase of studies in using ABM compared with SDM, partly due to the launching of new journals and the application of ABM to a broad range of topics. The concentration of SDM studies in just a few journals may be adversely affecting its diffusion. The last decade saw acceleration in using ABM to investigate infectious diseases and cancer while SDM applications have predominantly focused on non-communicable diseases such as obesity.We discuss several reasons that may explain the difference in diffusion processes for ABM and SDM. We believe these reasons, speculated either based on our literature analysis or the authors' qualitative assessment of the field, Syst. Res

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