1. Troubleshooting Logic Models
Developing a practical road map for identifying where you are now and where you hope to be in the future.
Muskie School of Public Service
Sara Kahn-Troster, MPH
Maine Health Access Foundation:
Rural Health Grantee Meeting
Bethel, Maine
November 7, 2018 1

2. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
What is a logic model?
A logic model:
Is a visualization of how you believe your program will work.
Helps you to see the logical connections between goals and objectives, strategies and activities, and outputs and outcomes.

3. Why Create a Logic Model?
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Why Create a Logic Model?
A logic model is a systematic and visual way to present the perceived relationships among:
the resources you have to operate your project or organization;
the activities you plan to provide;
the goals, changes, or results you hope to achieve.
Does not necessarily represent reality!

4. Why Create a Logic Model?
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Why Create a Logic Model?
Components of your Accelerating Rural Health Transformation work plan:
Activity/timeframe
Responsible party
Benchmarks and measures: how will success be determined? Outputs as well as short and intermediate term outcomes?

5. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Theory of Change
What population level condition are we trying to change? (result statement)
Why does this condition exist, both generally and in your community? (root cause analysis)
What are we going to do to address these factors? (i.e., strategies) programs, trainings, alignment, changes to policy and practice, etc.?

6. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Program vs population
Program: the people that your initiative serves directly
Population: everyone in your community
You are only responsible for the former, even when your initiative impacts the latter.

7. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Goals and Objectives
Goal = overall mission/purpose
Objective = specific and measurable steps that lead to that goal
Measurable objectives: who, what, where, by how much, when?
SMART: Smart, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic, Time Bound

8. Process vs. outcome objectives
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Process vs. outcome objectives
Process objectives: what a program intends to do in order to achieve the desired outcomes
service or product units
Outcome objectives: what tangible results will occur due to the program
knowledge gain; attitude change; skill development; behavior change

9. Components of a Logic Model
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Components of a Logic Model
Inputs/ Resources
Strategies/ Activities
Outputs
Outcomes: short
Outcomes: intermediate
Outcomes: long and population

10. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Inputs / Resources
What you need to operate your program or implement your initiative.
Staff
Funding
Participants
Program partners
Specific tools
Infrastructure

11. Strategies / Activities
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Strategies / Activities
What your program does with the resources.
Events
Trainings
Advocacy
Outreach
Technical Assistance
Monitoring
Publications
Relationship development

12. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Outputs
Your program’s service or product units
In other words, your process measures!
Answers: How do we know we are doing the work?
Examples include:
# participants
# of meetings held
# of materials developed

13. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Outcomes: short-term
Changes in knowledge, skills, beliefs, or perceptions
Timeframe: 1-2 years
Short-term outcomes are where your program has the most direct impact.

14. Outcomes: intermediate
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Outcomes: intermediate
Changes in behaviors, practices, policies, or systems
Timeframe: 3-5 years
Intermediate outcomes are pieces that your project can influence strongly but not exclusively.
Short and medium-term outcomes
= your outcome measures!!

15. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Outcomes: long-term
Changes in long term conditions for program participants and the overall population
Timeframe: 5+ years
Your project is one piece of the puzzle helping to make these changes for program participants and, more broadly, for your community.

16. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Outputs vs outcomes
Outputs: directly under your program’s control
What tells you that you have completed the work as planned.
Outcomes: the changes that your program influences but does not control
Changes or benefits that result from outputs
Harder to control the farther out they are

17. Theory of Change, Revisited
Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Theory of Change, Revisited
If the components of your logic model make sense, they will fit into your theory of change:
Long-term: What will success look like?
Intermediate: What behaviors, practices, and systems will change?
Short-term: What knowledge, skills, capacity, or perceptions will change?
Outputs: What will tell you if you have completed the work you have planned?

18. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
MeHAF Work Plan
You have developed your measurable objectives (both process and outcome)
You have figured out your activities
You have developed your outputs and short and intermediate outcomes
You know they all work together!

19. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Data Collection
Do you know how you’re going to track your outputs and outcomes?
What data do you have that you are currently collecting?
What data do you have that has already been collected?
What data will you need to collect? How?

20. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Questions?

21. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
With many thanks to:
Sarah Goan, Data Innovation Project
John Gale, Maine Rural Health Research Center

22. Muskie School of Public Service
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Contact Information
Sara Kahn-Troster, MPH
Maine Rural Health Research Center
Muskie School of Public Service
University of Southern Maine 22