Core Class Hierarchy

Below is a hierarchical view of classes in the VA Core Model, where attributes are inherited by child classes.

Legend: Hierarchical structure of classes and attributes comprising the domain-agnostic VA Core Model. Simple classes for representing Domain Entities such Conditions and Therapies are defined in the VA Core Model, but are not shown here.

Primary Classes in the model include Statement and Study Result - which root larger data structures used to collect data in VA Models as described in the next section. A discrete, evidence-based argument is captured by the Evidence Line class, referenced from a Statement’s hasEvidenceLines attribute. Other primary classes are used to capture provenance information about these key knowledge artifacts. Propositions play a special role in VA Models, as descried here. Many attributes across these primary classes (e.g. a Statement’s strength, classification, and quality) take a Mappable Concept as their value, which lets a data provider represent such values using a coded term from whatever system they use internally, a plain-text name where no code exists, or both - while also supporting explicit mappings to equivalent codes in other terminologies, so consumers of the data aren’t limited to the source system’s own vocabulary.

Complex Data Type classes hold collections of related fields that are used to capture values of certain attributes in the primary classes.