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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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Women's Lifestyle Heart Trial (Eugene, OR)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Women

Goal: The goal of the Women's Lifestyle Heart Trial is to reduce cardiovascular risk factors among postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease through lifestyle changes.

WomenVenture (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Employment, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: WomenVenture helps women of all ages, cultures, races and income levels achieve economic success.

World/BRIDGE Initiative (San Francisco)

Filed under Effective Practice, Economy / Investment & Personal Finance, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to encourage capital investment in low-income areas.

Yoga Ed (Los Angeles, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program was to improve the physical and mental well-being of students through practicing yoga.

Youth Speaks (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Education / Literacy, Teens

Goal: Youth Speaks aims to empower youth and effect change through written and oral literacy.

Youth United Through Health Education (YUTHE) Program (San Francisco)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the program is to increase awareness of screening for sexually transmitted infections in African-American adolescents.

The Millennium Project

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Governance

Goal: The Project's central objective is to provide information to decision makers and training materials to add focus to important issues, clarify choices and improve the quality of decisions by making future opportunities and dangers more explicit. The Project is not a one-time study of the future, but provides an on-going capacity for global research and collaboration.

Michigan Diabetes Outreach Network (MDON) (Michigan)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Diabetes

Goal: The goal of the network is to improve care and health outcomes for patients with diabetes.

National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) (USA)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants

Goal: The goal of the program is to encourage, through recognition, networking, and case example distribution, the minimization of hazardous and industrial wastes, particularly those waste streams containing one or more of the 31 priority chemicals. Under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), EPA has established a goal of reducing the amount of Priority Chemicals reported to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) by ten percent by 2008, using the year 2001 as a baseline.

Colorectal Cancer Screening Video Decision Aid (North Carolina)

Note: This practice has been Archived.

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults

Goal: The goal of this video decision aid is to inform patients of their colorectal cancer screening options and increase screening rates.

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.