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.

Submit a Promising Practice

The Incredible Years®

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families

Goal: The Incredible Years® Parents, Teachers, and Children Training Series has two long-range goals. The first goal is to develop comprehensive treatment programs for young children with early onset conduct problems. The second goal is the development of cost-effective, community-based, universal prevention programs that all families and teachers of young children can use to promote social competence and to prevent children from developing conduct problems in the first place.

Impact: Studies have shown that children who participate in the programs demonstrate significant improvements in school readiness, emotional regulation, and social skills, as well as reductions in behavior problems in the classroom.

The Living Room of the Community Health Center of LaGrange (LaGrange, IL)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Urban

Goal: To reduce the number of individuals with mental illness who use the ER, to help individuals achieve long-term recovery, and to develop a community peer-based support network.

Impact: The Living Room is a comfortable, non-clinical space that offers an alternative to hospital emergency rooms. The program in LaGrange, Illinois hopes to decrease unnecessary hospitalizations.

The Los Angeles Jobs-First Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) Program

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Economy / Government Assistance, Adults, Families

Goal: GAIN is part of a large-scale, welfare-to-work initiative program operating in every county in California. In L.A. County, the initiative is under the supervision of the Department of Public Social Services. It helps local businesses and employers find and hire quality workers who seek meaningful employment. Prospective workers are participants in the state welfare programs known as California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKS) or General Relief Opportunities for Work (GROW).

The Ohio Department of Health School-Based Dental Sealant Program (Ohio)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Oral Health, Children

Goal: The goal of the Ohio Department of Health School-Based Dental Sealant Program is to provide grants to agencies that aim to conduct dental sealant programs in schools with large proportions of low-income students.

The Seattle-King County Healthy Homes Project (Seattle-King County, Washington)

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

Goal: The goals of the Seattle-King Healthy Homes project are: to increase knowledge of home environmental health threats and asthma self-management among households with a child who suffers from asthma; help households reduce environmental threats in the household; improve health status and reduce asthma-related medical care utilization.

The Wray Health Initiative (Wary, Colorado)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Rural

Goal: To improve health in the rural community of Wray Colorado by increasing the level of physical activities, conducting health assessments, and encouraging individual physical activity.

Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, Screening, and Intervention Program (Los Angeles)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes, Adults, Urban

Goal: The program's goal is to provide screening, education, and support services for patients at high risk for the development of type 2 diabetes and for those already diagnosed with the disease.

Utah's Emergency Assistance Program (Utah)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Government Assistance

Goal: The goal of this program is to promote stability by preventing families and individuals from being evicted.

Vaccination Programs: Home Visits to Increase Vaccination Rates

New CDC

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends home visits to increase vaccination rates in children and adults. The CPSTF notes, however, that economic evidence shows home visits can be resource-intensive and costly relative to other options.

Vaccines for Children Program (United States)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: Vaccines for Children was designed to ensure that eligible children do not contract vaccine-preventable diseases because of inability to pay for vaccine.

Impact: Racial and ethnic disparities in vaccination coverage between non-Hispanic white children and children of other groups have declined for vaccines that have been recommended since 1995. By providing increased access, VFC has increased protection for all children from vaccine-preventable diseases.

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

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.
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:

The program description includes: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program funding source, program implementation steps and outcomes.
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:

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.
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.
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.