While smoking in the United States is declining overall, stark disparities still exist across segments of the population. Many subgroups, including low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations, continue to shoulder most of the disease burden. That nuance might not be apparent for the average person, but it became clear for a team of students at UNC-Chapel Hill who recently won a social innovation competition by exploring ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities in smoking – and what it may take to address the root causes.

The team of graduate students is from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health who won UNC-Chapel Hill’s first Map the System Competition, which held its campus finale in early May. A global competition organized by Oxford University’s Said Business School, Map the System challenges students to use systems thinking to understand complex social or environmental challenges. More than 40 student teams at Carolina registered to participate this semester, and five finalist teams were selected to present in the final round of competition. The public health team’s project – called “Using Systems Science to Advance Health Equity in Tobacco Control” – took the top spot among an impressive set of finalists that explored a wide range of issues: hog farming, food insecurity, colorectal cancer and the effect of sand extraction on marine ecosystems.  

The team will move on to compete in the virtual global event hosted by Oxford University in early June, when one team from each of the nearly 50 participating institutions from around the world will see whose idea comes out on top. For the top three teams, cash prizes are up for grabs. The first place winner will take home £4,000, which is just shy of $5,000 in U.S. currency.

“What’s special about the Map the System Competition is that it focuses on learning first, so that people get the chance to understand and build upon existing efforts before starting something new,” says Melissa Carrier, director of the UNC Office of Social Innovation who worked to bring the competition to the University for the first time. “Each of our five final UNC teams did an outstanding job using a mapping approach to investigate problems that matter to them – and bringing to the surface insights that can help spark positive systemic changes in public health, the environment and other areas of social concern.”

Presented by the UNC Office of Social Innovation and Carolina Honors, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Map the System campus competition is open to all Carolina students and asks participants to create systems maps. The maps give students tools for exploring complex problems, uncovering knowledge gaps, identifying intervention points and presenting insights that can shape systemic environmental and social impact. In addition, teams in the competition must be comprised of at least one student or recent graduate and have a maximum of five active team members. 

“By integrating an equity prioritization lens with systems science, this competition provided the opportunity to apply two skills that I learned during my graduate program and hope to bring with me into my public health career,” says Paige Logan, a public health graduate student who worked as part of the health equity and tobacco control team. “It also demonstrates the considerations and implications that academics and practitioners need to discuss and work on together in order to promote systems change.”