MONITORING & EVALUATION IN GLOBAL HEALTH
Logic Model: Impact
Lecturer: Nami Kawakyu
Introduction
Now let’s begin to dive deeper into logic models by discussing the “impact” column of the logic
model.
What Is an Impact?
An impact statement is often the same as the overall, long-term goal of the program. It
answers the questions: What long-term change do we hope to see as a result of this program?
What problem or need does it address? The impact statement helps establish the overall
direction of the work to ensure shared understanding among program team members and
other collaborators.
Examples of impact statements include:
● Reduced under-5 mortality rate in Ebonyi State
● Decreased health care-associated infections in Awani
● Improved health information system performance in Peru
Typically, multiple programs or projects will contribute to achieving the impact.
Impact Components
Change Impact Area Priority Population/Area
Examples: Increased, Examples: access, health Examples: gender (women/men),
improved, enhanced, service delivery, health age (children, adolescents), health
advanced, strengthened, outcomes, health status (people living with HIV)
decreased, reduced, disparities, health system
eliminated
Increased access to clean water among residents of Oaxaca
Improved retention to HIV care among people living with HIV in
Eastern Province
Decreased maternal mortality among women in Maputo
Decreased disparities in maternal among women in Maputo
mortality
Improved data quality of monthly community health data
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When developing impact statements, consider the following three components: What is the
change? What is the impact area? And who is the priority population or what is the geographic
area? Let’s now talk about each of these...
For, “What is the change?” use words like increased, improved, enhanced, advanced,
strengthened, decreased, reduced, or eliminated to show a change.
The impact area includes impact to
● access, such as access to clean water or HIV treatment,
● health service delivery impacts, such as increased quality of TB service delivery,
● impacts to health outcomes, such as maternal mortality,
● health disparities impacts, such as disparities in maternal mortality, and
● health system topics, such as data quality or supply chain.
And who is the priority population or area? These are people who will be affected by your
program. This may be grouped by gender, such as women, age, such as children or adolescents,
or health status, such as people living with HIV.
So, we can put all of these pieces together to come up with impact statements such as,
“Increased access to clean water among residents of Oaxaca” and “Improved data quality of
health information system in Afar.”
Standardized Impacts
When deciding on your program goal and impact statement, you may want to consider whether
there is a standardized impact statement and indicator that is relevant to your program area.
For example, if your program area is in clean water, you may want to adapt the related
Sustainable Development Goal of “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water
and sanitation for all” to your target population and area. This way, you can also ensure that
any measurement of your impact can follow globally or nationally accepted and standardized
indicators.
How specific or broad your impact statement is will depend on the role of the person or
organization implementing the program. For example, if you are a manager of a health facility,
the focus of your impact will likely be changes at the health facility level. If you are part of the
national Ministry of Health, the focus of your impact may be broader at the national-level.
Closing
In this lecture, we discussed what impacts are and how to develop them.
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