How To Do It

Elements that are connected within a logic model might vary but generally include inputs (e.g., trained staff), activities (e.g., identification of cases), outputs (e.g., persons completing treatment), and results ranging from immediate (e.g., curing affected persons) to intermediate (e.g., reduction in tuberculosis rate) to long-term effects (e.g., improvement of population health status).

Creating a logic model allows stakeholders to clarify the program's strategies; therefore, the logic model improves and focuses program direction. It also reveals assumptions concerning conditions for program effectiveness and provides a frame of reference for one or more evaluations of the program.

A detailed logic model can also strengthen claims of causality and be a basis for estimating the program's effect on endpoints that are not directly measured but are linked in a causal chain supported by prior research. Families of logic models can be created to display a program at different levels of detail, from different perspectives, or for different audiences (taken from CDC's Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health).