A series of logic models have been developed for the each of the 14 standards in the Ontario Public Health Standards (OPHS), as a support to understanding the standards and the assumed relationships among the elements (requirements, board of health outcomes, societal outcomes and goals) within each standard.

The logic model approach has been used as a framework for the overall development of the OPHS, as described in the introduction of the OPHS. This approach is intended to help move Ontario's public health system from a focus on processes to a focus on achieving outcomes.

The provincial level logic models for the foundational standard and each of the 13 program standards provides a visual representation of the assumed linkages between all the elements within each of the standards. The logic models contain the same text as the OPHS document, so each element can be mapped from this source to the logic models.

It is important to acknowledge that the logic models presented here are in fact linkage or relationship maps, and not traditional logic models, since they contain only the OPHS text. Logic models are usually built from the ground up, in an open enquiring framework that asks “If this, then what?” at each stage to document all the important connections and details of the assumed or known interactions. Since the logic models reflect only the OPHS text, they do not provide any new details, but they do summarize each of the standards and show the relationships between the elements.

It will be apparent that the requirements are not presented in order. This was necessary in order to minimize the complexity of each logic model and show the requirements that relate to specific outcomes. Working with the logic models does assume some prior knowledge of the standard area content.

Because the logic models use only the text of the OPHS, some known or assumed causal linkages appear to be missing activities or outcomes. The outcomes shown are the ones considered to be the most important because they show the expectations around the accountabilities of boards of health. Additional actions and outcomes are assumed to be occurring, and could be shown in locally developed program logic models.

Each logic models is presented in both a full text version and an abridged text version. Each pair contains the same arrangement of elements. The abridged text version was created for ease of reading and focuses on the critical concepts only.

These provincial level logic models can be treated as a reflection of the high level concepts that underlie public health programs as they are articulated in the OPHS. Existing provincial level program specific logic models, such as for the HEAL strategy, will overlap with some portion of these OPHS logic models.

These logic models should provide a starting point for the development or revision of local (board of health) level program specific logic models. At the local level, it is quite possible that several program specific logic models would be required to cover the whole range of one OPHS standard. Local logic models would treat the requirements or board of health outcomes in any of the standards as the ultimate goal of local service delivery. In a local logic model, all the interrelated outcomes, inputs, activities and audiences could be specified in more detail than was possible here.

Local logic models can be developed for a range of purposes, including as a strategic planning tool (i.e., fairly high level, looking for synergies across requirements and programs) or as a support to operational planning (i.e., showing the work of different teams or details about all processes/ actions used within a local program).