Diane Finegood, the President of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research in Canada addressed CEIPS event (below).The session was described in a CEIPS blog which said Finegood explained how a systems approach differed from business as usual in public health as it would support adaptive change rather than imposing standardised interventions through models, guidelines and frameworks.

The blogger wrote, quoting an interviewee in his or her own research, “The day of scalability, of standardised programs, is dead”: Recognition that one size does not fit all.

Reporting on the discussion following Finegood’s presentation, the blogger described some resistance to the idea of throwing out governments’ “command and control” role completely, pointing to its effectiveness in tobacco control.