The process of understanding how things interact within a whole to produce its characteristics or properties. It is carried out many different ways using different techniques, yet always focuses on the context and the interrelationships of the parts rather than on them in isolation (as with scientific reductionism). It is concerned more with cyclic behavior, feedback mechanisms, critical thresholds, cross: scale interactions (than linear cause and effect dynamics of mechanistic systems). Systems thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system — natural, scientific, engineered, human, or conceptual. It is argued as the only way to fully understand how a problem or element occurs or persists (e.g., an emerging pathogen) and to avoid unintended consequences of targeting a single element or variable.