Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG5 1PB, UK.
UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, UK.
J Public Health (Oxf). 2021 Sep 22;43(3):639-646. doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdaa032.
The evaluation of large-scale public health policy interventions often relies on observational designs where attributing causality is challenging. Logic models-visual representations of an intervention's anticipated causal pathway-facilitate the analysis of the most relevant outcomes. We aimed to develop a set of logic models that could be widely used in tobacco policy evaluation.
We developed an overarching logic model that reflected the broad categories of outcomes that would be expected following the implementation of tobacco control policies. We subsequently reviewed policy documents to identify the outcomes expected to result from the implementation of each policy and conducted a literature review of existing evaluations to identify further outcomes. The models were revised according to feedbacks from a range of stakeholders.
The final models represented expected causal pathways for each policy. The models included short-term outcomes (such as policy awareness, compliance and social cognitive outcomes), intermediate outcomes (such as changes in smoking behaviour) and long-term outcomes (such as mortality, morbidity and health service usage).
The use of logic models enables transparent and theory-based planning of evaluation analyses and should be encouraged in the evaluation of tobacco control policy, as well as other areas of public health.
大型公共卫生政策干预措施的评估通常依赖于观察性设计，而在这种设计中归因因果关系具有挑战性。逻辑模型——干预措施预期因果途径的可视化表示——有助于分析最相关的结果。我们旨在开发一套可广泛用于烟草政策评估的逻辑模型。
我们开发了一个总体逻辑模型，反映了在实施控烟政策后预计会出现的广泛类别的结果。随后，我们审查了政策文件，以确定实施每项政策预期会产生的结果，并对现有评估进行了文献综述，以确定其他结果。根据来自一系列利益相关者的反馈，对模型进行了修订。
最终的模型代表了每项政策的预期因果途径。这些模型包括短期结果（如政策意识、合规和社会认知结果）、中期结果（如吸烟行为的变化）和长期结果（如死亡率、发病率和卫生服务使用）。
逻辑模型的使用能够使评估分析的规划具有透明性和理论依据，应在烟草控制政策评估以及其他公共卫生领域得到鼓励。
