MPSI Logic Model

A log­ic mod­el describes the activ­i­ties of an orga­ni­za­tion and links among pro­gram mis­sion, activ­i­ties, out­puts, and short‑, intermediate‑, and long-term out­comes relat­ed to a spe­cif­ic prob­lem or sit­u­a­tion. The Mis­souri Pre­ven­tion Sci­ence Institute’s log­ic mod­el was ini­ti­at­ed by our Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and refined by the entire team over the course of the first year. We expect to con­tin­ue to refine the mod­el over time.

The two-page mod­el can be seen below, click on each for a larg­er view.

Our log­ic mod­el is guid­ed by pub­lic health, eco­log­i­cal, and mul­ti­cul­tur­al frame­works. Our assump­tions are ground­ed in social-eco­log­i­cal the­o­ries of devel­op­ment. We began with the most basic assump­tion that all chil­dren deserve healthy and safe envi­ron­ments and that adults are respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing these envi­ron­ments. Because of our inter­est in the eco­log­i­cal and pub­lic health impli­ca­tions of our work, we also made explic­it our assump­tions that gov­ern­ments also share respon­si­ble for ensur­ing that all chil­dren have access to healthy and safe envi­ron­ments. More­over, we assumed that depres­sion and aggres­sion pose a major bur­den for chil­dren and soci­ety, an assump­tion sup­port­ed by exten­sive pub­lic health data. Our oth­er assump­tions include beliefs about the val­ue of evi­dence-based strate­gies espe­cial­ly when they are con­nect­ed to com­mu­ni­ty-based par­tic­i­pa­to­ry research. Next, we defined the four core oper­a­tional activ­i­ties of the Insti­tute that arise from our assump­tions, val­ues, and vision: research, ser­vice, train­ing, and pol­i­cy. Each of these in turn have spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties.  The Log­ic Mod­el depicts how these activ­i­ties are linked to desired short-term out­comes and in turn result in the long-term out­comes of Insti­tute activities.