Mo's Field Notes

Issue 1

Tools to Uncover Hidden Health Systems

Hello there! This is the first issue of my newsletter, Mo’s Field Notes. In this newsletter, my goal is to make public health easier to see, understand, and talk about. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful. :-)

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These notes aim to examine public health as it operates in everyday life: not as a job title or slogan, but as a set of systems that quietly shape what feels possible in a neighborhood, a clinic, or a school day.

One place to start is with tools. Not because tools fix structural problems on their own, but because they make complexity more legible. They turn fog into something you can sketch, trace, and explain at a kitchen table.

Below are a few free resources to understand how public health systems actually work, without getting bogged down in jargon.

System Mapping Tools

System maps are one way to draw out “who and what is connected to this problem,” instead of staying stuck at “who is to blame.” They make visible the relationships between organizations, incentives, and feedback loops that quietly determine why some issues feel stuck.

🎨 Free Ecosystem Map Template (for Community Health and Collaboration) ​Get template →​

📈 Systems Mapping Overview for Social Impact ​Start learning →​

📘 Systems Mapping Primer and Workbook ​Download book →​

Plain-Language Public Health Explainers

I took my first Plain Language training at CDC in 2016, and it was a major eye-opening experience. Plain language is not about “dumbing things down”; it is about removing the extra cognitive tax people pay to decode insider speech. It is one of the most basic forms of respect in public health, and some guides treat it as a real skill rather than an afterthought.

📘 Plain Language for Public Health Guide ​Get guide →​

📘 Free Plain Language Communication Training ​Start learning →​

📘 CDC Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) Manual + Training ​Get manual →​

Introductory Frameworks & Systems Thinking

Frameworks are useful when they help you name patterns you already sense but don’t yet have language for. They are less “solutions” and more lenses: ways of noticing interconnections, power, and path dependence in what otherwise looks like a random mess.

System Thinking for Health Actions (STHA) A framework outlining six core features of systems thinking in health, paired with concrete tools such as stakeholder mapping, causal loop diagrams, and scenario planning. Read Article

Systems Thinking in Public Health Policy (open-access article) An article exploring how systems thinking supports policy development in dynamic, political environments, including the use of models and feedback analysis. Read Article

Complex Systems Thinking in Health A concise introduction to ideas like nonlinearity, emergence, and why simple cause-and-effect stories tend to fail in real-world health systems. Read PDF

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These tools do not replace organizing, funding, or political will. They do something quieter but still important. They help you see the water you are swimming in, trace how decisions made far before they show up as conditions in daily life, and notice where a small shift might matter more than a loud effort in the wrong place.

This is the thread I plan to keep pulling in these notes: paying attention, naming patterns, and resisting the urge to flatten complexity into something more comfortable.

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Thank you for reading. I hope you found this issue helpful. See you in the next issue on January 21, 2026.

-Mo

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