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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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Early HeartSmarts Program (Salt Lake City)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families

Goal: The goal of this program is to help preschool children learn emotional self-regulation and facilitate their psychosocial development.

Impact: The Early HeartSmarts program was effective in increasing children’s social/emotional, physical, cognitive and language development in a classroom setting.

Early Risers 'Skills for Success' Program (Minneapolis, MN)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Children

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent behavior problems and substance abuse.

Families in Action (Kennesaw, GA)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent substance abuse among youth.

Healthy Love (Atlanta, GA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: Healthy Love seeks to provide a safe, culturally tailored intervention for heterosexual black women to reduce their disproportionately high risk of transmitting and contracting HIV and other STDs. Healthy Love aims to encourage sexual abstinence, HIV testing, and receipt of test results; increase women's condom usage during vaginal sex with male partners; and reduce the number of women's sex partners and unprotected anal and vaginal sex with male partners. Healthy Love also seeks to improve HIV/STD knowledge, self-efficacy for using condoms, intentions to use condoms, and attitudes towards condoms.

Impact: Healthy Love increased participants' likelihood of using condoms, being tested for HIV, and receiving their test results. The intervention also reduced participants' self-described actions with male partners that can increase black women's risks for HIV infection.

Home-Delivered Meals Postdischarge From Heart Failure Hospitalization (GOURMET-HF) (Columbia University Medical Center, the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Health System, and the University of Michigan Health System)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Heart Disease & Stroke, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults

Goal: The goals of GOURMET-HF are to assess the safety of the intervention, including effects on cardiac biomarkers and rehospitalization burden.

Impact: Home-delivered DASH/SRD after HF hospitalization appear safe in selected patients and had favorable effects on HF clinical status and 30-day readmissions. The GOURMET-HF pilot study suggests that postdischarge nutritional support has the potential to improve HF symptoms and reduce readmissions

Influenza Vaccination Program (Henderson County, NC)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases

Goal: In 2002, the health department changed the clinic site and operation to accomplish the following three goals: 1) to conduct a mass vaccination involving other community agencies, businesses and health providers; 2) to distribute influenza vaccination in the community for greater equity and accountability; and 3) to introduce the citizens to the concept and process of a mass vaccination drill.

Prevention Care Management (New York, NY)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Women, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Prevention Care Management program is to increase cancer screening among women.

Impact: Prevention Care Management increased mammography rates, cervical cancer screening rates, and colorectal cancer screening rates among participating women.

Program to Encourage Active, Rewarding Lives for Seniors (PEARLS) (Washington)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Older Adults, Older Adults

Goal: The goal of the PEARLS program is to provide home-based counseling in order to manage and treat depression among older adults.

REAL Men (Atlanta)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: This program aims to promote delay of sexual intercourse, condom use among those who were sexually active, and communication on sexuality between fathers (or father figures) and sons.

Respect for All Training Program (New York)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / School Environment, Urban

Goal: The program’s goal is to make New York City public schools safe and supportive for all students and to have staff members who could support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students.

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.