Brookings Mountain West presents "New Approaches to Understanding and Managing Social Dynamics and Public Policy" a talk by Ross A. Hammond, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies.

Complex social dynamics drive our economic, political, and public health systems, and understanding these dynamics can be critical for designing effective public policies. Advanced computational modeling is increasingly used at the national level to craft responses to complex public health challenges facing our society, including obesity, infectious disease pandemics, and widening health disparities. This presentation will include introduction to these novel computational methods and an overview of several recent research studies from the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) and Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) networks, which have both been cited by the Department of Health and Human Services for their innovation and contributions to the nation’s health. Applications to other policy questions will also be discussed.

Ross A. Hammond is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he is director of the Center on Social Dynamics and Policy. His primary area of expertise is modeling complex dynamics of social, economic, political and public health systems using mathematical and agent-based computational methods. His current research topics include obesity, behavioral epidemiology, corruption and anti-corruption policies, ethnocentrism and inter-group relations, and the dynamics of trust.