CHL 640 Week 2 Evaluation Questions From a Logic Model Example

Reading the Logic Model Column by Column: Writing Process and Outcome Evaluation Questions for Walk and Eat Well

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

CHL/640: Evaluating Community Health Initiatives

Week 2 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The initiative, its logic model, stakeholder priorities and final questions are composites written for a model paper modeled on Yakima, Washington; research findings and federal guidance come from the sources cited.

At its first working session, the Walk and Eat Well evaluation team brainstormed every question anyone had raised: 31 in all, from whether promotoras arrived on time to whether diabetes rates would fall across the east side. The evaluator pointed out that answering all of them would consume the entire evaluation budget and much of staff time. This paper shows how the team turned its logic model into a focused set of evaluation questions.

Why Start From the Logic Model

A logic model states how a program is expected to work. McLaughlin and Jordan describe it as a way to tell a program's performance story, linking resources, activities, outputs and the people reached to outcomes over time and noting external influences (McLaughlin & Jordan, 1999). Every arrow in the story is a claim, and every claim can become an evaluation question.

Where Questions Fit in CDC's Framework

CDC's evaluation framework places describing the program, often with a logic model, before focusing the evaluation design, and it asks evaluators to choose questions that serve intended users within feasible limits (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 1999). The team's logic model, built during planning, was the starting point.

Column One: Resources

Resource questions ask whether the initiative had what it needed. Were six promotoras hired and trained on schedule? Did partners provide promised space, referrals and data? Were funds spent as budgeted?

Column Two: Activities

Activity questions ask whether things happened as planned. How many lifestyle sessions, walks and store tastings were held? Were core elements of the lifestyle curriculum delivered with fidelity? Did stores stock the agreed list of items?

Column Three: Outputs and Reach

Output questions ask how much was delivered and to whom. How many adults enrolled, and how many attended at least 12 core sessions? Who enrolled, by language, age, sex and neighborhood, compared with the east side's adults with prediabetes? How many unique walkers used the groups?

Questions About Equity

The team added questions about fairness across groups. Do Spanish-speaking and English-speaking participants attend and benefit equally? Are older adults and families from the trailer park and the farmworker housing complex enrolling at rates that match their share of the neighborhood? Do stores in different parts of the east side see similar changes? Answering these requires collecting data by group from the start.

Participant Experience

Process evaluation also asks how participants experienced the program. Did participants find sessions useful, respectful and convenient? What barriers kept people from attending? What did store owners and walk leaders find hard?

Column Four: Short-Term Outcomes

Short-term questions ask about early changes. Did participants' confidence to be active and to cook healthier meals increase by session eight? Did knowledge of label reading and portion sizes improve? Did produce become more available and visible in partner stores?

Column Five: Intermediate Outcomes

Intermediate questions ask about behavior and physical change. Did lifestyle participants who completed core sessions reach an average weight loss of 5% by month twelve? What share reached 150 minutes of weekly activity? Did produce sales at partner stores rise? Did evening use of the river path increase?

Column Six: Long-Term Outcomes

Long-term questions ask about health. Over three to five years, do fewer participants develop diabetes than comparable residents who did not take part? Do neighborhood measures of inactivity and obesity begin to change? These questions require longer follow-up than the grant period.

Turning Assumptions Into Questions

The model's assumptions become questions too. Do participants attend enough to benefit? Do walkers feel safe on the lit path? Does stocked produce sell, or spoil? Is attendance linked to weight loss, as prior research suggests? Every assumption left untested is a place the evaluation could be surprised.

A Framework That Adds Missing Questions

The team checked its list against RE-AIM. Glasgow and colleagues proposed judging interventions not only by whether they work but by whom they reach, whether settings take them up, how faithfully they are delivered and whether they last, for individuals and organizations alike, arguing that evaluations focused only on efficacy can waste resources and limit public health impact (Glasgow et al., 1999). The check added two questions the team had missed: whether additional churches and stores adopted the components and whether participants maintained weight loss after the maintenance sessions ended.

Prioritizing With Stakeholders

The team shared the draft list with the initiative committee, promotoras, store owners, participants and the foundation. Each rated questions for importance to decisions and feasibility with available data and time. Residents ranked participant experience and weight loss highest; the foundation ranked weight loss and cost; the health center ranked attendance and fidelity; store owners ranked sales.

Timing of Answers

Questions differ in when answers are needed. Fidelity and attendance questions need monthly answers for program management. Participant experience needs answers after each cohort. Weight and activity questions need twelve-month data. Cost questions need answers before the foundation's renewal decision in year three. Mapping timing helped the team plan data collection so that answers arrive when decisions are made.

The Eight Priority Questions

First, did the program reach adults with prediabetes on the east side, including Spanish speakers and older adults, in proportion to their numbers? Second, were core elements delivered with fidelity? Third, how many participants attended at least 12 core sessions, and what predicted attendance? Fourth, how did participants experience the program? Fifth, did completers reach an average weight loss of 5% by month twelve? Sixth, did the share reaching 150 minutes of weekly activity increase? Seventh, did produce availability and sales rise at partner stores? Eighth, what did the program cost per participant and per completer?

Checking Against Standards

Each question passed the framework's standards: useful to named users, feasible with planned data, ethical to ask and answerable accurately. The long-term diabetes question was kept as a follow-up question beyond the grant because it cannot be answered accurately in three years.

Writing Questions Well

The team applied a few rules to wording. Each question names a population, a change or activity and a time frame. Each can be answered with data the team can collect. None assumes the answer, so the team replaced did the program improve eating with did produce purchases change. And each question points to a decision someone will make.

Questions Set Aside

Some questions were set aside: individual promotora performance, which could discourage staff and was better handled through supervision; shopper-level diet changes, which would require costly surveys; and neighborhood-wide obesity change, which the program is too small to detect.

How the Questions Guide What Comes Next

Each priority question points to indicators and data sources, the next step in the evaluation plan, and shapes the design: some questions need only counts, others need before-and-after measures and a comparison group.

Conclusion

Reading the logic model column by column turned 31 scattered questions into eight priorities. Process questions examine resources, activities, reach and experience; outcome questions examine confidence, weight, activity and store sales; and assumptions became questions. CDC's framework guided the sequence, RE-AIM added reach, adoption and maintenance and stakeholders shaped the final list.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (1999). Framework for program evaluation in public health. MMWR Recommendations and Reports, 48(RR-11), 1-40. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr4811a1.htm

Glasgow, R. E., Vogt, T. M., & Boles, S. M. (1999). Evaluating the public health impact of health promotion interventions: The RE-AIM framework. American Journal of Public Health, 89(9), 1322-1327. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.89.9.1322

McLaughlin, J. A., & Jordan, G. B. (1999). Logic models: A tool for telling your program's performance story. Evaluation and Program Planning, 22(1), 65-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0149-7189(98)00042-1