A Conceptual Framework for Studying Linkages in an Agriculture-Health-Environment System

Temel, Tugrul; and Maru, Ajit. 2002. A Conceptual Framework for Studying Linkages in an Agriculture-Health-Environment System. Discussion Paper 02-6.

The agriculture-health-environment system (AHES) is a system that counteracts healthproblems in a community, such as malaria, whose causes are multi-factorial, emergingfrom the interaction of agriculture and environment, and whose solutions are throughcross-sector cooperation of organizations, such as hospitals, community clinics, andirrigation departments that respond to counteract it. The system's overall objective is toimprove the health, social, and economic wellbeing of the target community. The AHESis characterized by a set of organizations that have complex linkages between them.These linkages enable agriculture, health, and environment organizations to generate,disseminate and use data, information, knowledge, and draw resources to counteract acommunity problem. By defining the linkages, learning about the problem and itssolutions across organizations can be hastened giving impetus to the process of change inorganizations and in the system. This study introduces a conceptual frameworkdeveloped using a systems methodology to define the AHES, its componentorganizations, and their linkages. It then illustrates the application of the conceptualframework to describe a model AHES in the context of its organizational linkages formalaria control.