26 February 2026
The Alliance and HSG webinar series: From Global to Local and Back: Participatory System Dynamics Modeling to Improve Cardiovascular Outcomes – 19 March 2026
This webinar has now finished. If you missed it or would like to revisit the discussion, the full recording is available on the HSG YouTube channel.
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From Global to Local and Back: Participatory System Dynamics Modeling to Improve Cardiovascular Outcome.
- Speakers: Dr. Daniel Cobos Muñoz, Ms. Pei Shan Loo, Mr. Wang Zhao, Dr. Yara Baxter
- Date: 19 March 2026
- Time: 12pm UK / 1pm Geneva
- Duration: 90 minutes
- Webinar Registration - Zoom
Webinar theme overview:
Cardiovascular diseases remain a leading cause of death globally, yet addressing them requires navigating complex and interconnected health systems. Actions in one part of the system often have ripple effects elsewhere, making it difficult to translate global evidence into effective local strategies. This webinar will explore how participatory system dynamics modeling can help policymakers and practitioners better understand these dynamics and design more coherent responses.
The session will present three complementary perspectives.
- First, a public health lens demonstrating how modeling can be anchored in ongoing policy discussions, supporting decision makers to explore trade-offs across screening, diagnosis, treatment, and long-term outcomes
- Second, practical insights from participatory model building, highlighting how engaging stakeholders in the modeling process fosters shared understanding, trust, and greater alignment between evidence and implementation
- Third, experience from multi-country applications, showing how models can be calibrated and adapted to different national contexts while transparently addressing uncertainty.
By moving iteratively between global knowledge and local realities, participatory modeling can serve as a structured learning platform, helping health systems design more coherent and sustainable strategies to improve cardiovascular outcomes.
About the speakers:
Dr. Daniel Cobos Muñoz (MD, MPH, PhD.) is a Research Fellow in the Health Systems and Policy Research Group, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. He is a Medical Doctor specialized in Family and Community Medicine, with a Master’s Degree in Public Health in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in Public Health. He has more than 15 years of experience working in health systems of low and middle-income countries. His areas of expertise are enterprise architecture process mapping applied to health systems, health information systems, district health systems, and primary health care.
Pei Shan Loo (Mphil.) is a system dynamics and computational modeler working at the intersection of health and social systems. She has a background in public health and peace and conflict studies, with extensive experience in migrant health and protection across Southeast Asia. She applies participatory modeling and quantitative simulation methods to examine feedback mechanisms underlying health and social issues and to identify system-level interventions. Her work focuses on translating complex findings into accessible, actionable evidence for decision makers, bridging research and real-world application.
Wang Zhao (MPhil) is a Scientific Collaborator at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, where he uses system dynamics to model and analyze public health policy related to non-communicable diseases. With eight years of experience in system dynamics modelling, he specializes in complex, dynamic socio-economic systems and has worked across both the engineering and health sectors. He holds an MPhil in System Dynamics and an MPhil in Management Science.
Yara Carnevalli Baxter is a senior health systems consultant with over 40 years of experience across public, private, academic, and third-sector settings. She holds a PhD from the University of São Paulo and represents the Novartis Foundation in Brazil for the CARDIO4Cities initiative. In today’s context, Yara has been actively involved in implementing system dynamics and digital twin models, working closely with implementation teams and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, as well as city governments and stakeholders, to translate data into action and strengthen integrated, sustainable health systems. This work has recently contributed to peer-reviewed publications.
The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research and Health Systems Global (HSG) are working together on a programme of work on Health Systems Impact Modelling.
This includes the development of modelling approaches to measure the impact of health systems strengthening (HSS) interventions on essential health services in three countries: Ethiopia, Indonesia and Kenya. It also includes bringing together a wider group of stakeholders from around the world to exchange experiences around the use of health systems modelling, share best practices, and catalyse the creation of a community of researchers, policymakers and programme implementers interested in the use of health systems modelling to inform policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
To listen to more webinars from the series please visit the links below: