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Promising Practices

The Promising Practices database informs professionals and community members about documented approaches to improving community health and quality of life.

The ultimate goal is to support the systematic adoption, implementation, and evaluation of successful programs, practices, and policy changes. The database provides carefully reviewed, documented, and ranked practices that range from good ideas to evidence-based practices.
Learn more about the ranking methodology.

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Washington DC One-Stop (Washington, DC)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment

Goal: The goal of this program is to help move people from public assistance to employment.

Water First (Lexington, KY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Families

Goal: Water First aims to reduce the sugary beverage intake and increase water intake in tweens through an educational website for tweens and their parents, and promotion in the community.

Westside Infant-Family Network (Los Angeles County)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: Westside Infant-Family Network’s mission is to ensure that families with prenatal through three-year-olds receive the mental health care and community resources they need to strengthen their families and achieve healthy parent-child relationships.

Wood Stove Changeout Campaign (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of a wood stove changeout campaign is to reduce the usage of inefficient wood stoves in order to improve air quality.

Adults and Children Together - Parents Raising Safe Kids (ACT-PRSK) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program is to teach parents/caregivers effective parenting skills, create a support system for their children, and equip participants with non-violent techniques to encourage a safe environment at home and in the community.

Impact: ACT program has been shown to prevent child maltreatment and promote positive parenting skills, including reducing physical violence towards children, improving knowledge of appropriate discipline, and improving parent methods for teaching children nonviolent social skills.

Alcohol Misuse Prevention Study (Southeast Michigan)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce alcohol misuse among adolescents.

Impact: Middle school students who receive the curriculum have increased knowledge about alcohol misuse when compared to a control group. Students who received programming in the 10th grade had significantly increased alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, decreased alcohol misuse, and increased refusal skills. During their first year of driving, students who received the curriculum were involved in fewer serious traffic or drug offenses than students in the control group.

Asthma Basics for Children (ABC) (New York, NY)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program was to provide a multi-layered asthma management program for parents, children, and staff of early childhood centers.

Impact: The ABC program demonstrates that a multi-layered approach can improve asthma outcomes among preschoolers with a combination of parent and provider education having the greatest impact.

Asthma Care Training (ACT) for Kids (Bronx, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families

Goal: Effective asthma control can improve quality of life, reduce medical costs, and reduce the number of asthma-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, school and work days missed, days of restricted activity, and deaths each year.

BabyFirst Solano (Solano, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: BabyFirst Solano aims to increase the number of women entering early, adequate prenatal care and improve birth outcomes for high-risk populations.

California Votes Initiative (California)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Civic Engagement, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The Initiative's goal was to increase voter participation rates among infrequent voters, particularly in low-income and ethnic communities.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.

A Good Idea meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
  2. The program evaluation is limited to descriptive measure(s) of success/accomplishment (i.e., program participation rates, number of services/education sessions/radio messages provided). Note: oftentimes, the program has been newly implemented and a program evaluation has not yet been conducted. Programs that have not yet been evaluated, but which show promise in improving health or quality of life, are classified as Good Ideas until an evaluation is conducted.

An Evidence-Based Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures showing improvement in the outcome(s) of interest after the implementation of the program (i.e. increase in smoking cessation, not just the delivery of a smoking cessation program). The outcome measure(s) is/are compared at relevant time periods before and after the intervention or program implementation. Alternatively, the evaluation study compares the outcome(s) between an intervention group and an appropriate control group.
  3. The study is of peer-review quality and presents numbers in a scientific manner; measurements of precision and reliability are included (e.g. confidence intervals, standard errors), results from statistical tests show a significant difference or change in the outcome measure(s), and relevant point estimates and p-values are presented. Note: if the results from an evaluation of a program are presented in a scientific manner and the outcome measure is improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant, the practice is classified as effective and not evidence-based.