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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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Strong African American Families (SAAF) (Georgia)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Children, Teens, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural

Goal: The SAAF program aims to prevent initiation of risk behaviors such as drug abuse, alcohol and cigarette use, and sexual activity in low-income African American preadolescents.

Impact: This program has helped create positive family interactions and support youth and teens as they take the next steps toward a positive future.

Strong Hearts, Healthy Communities (StrongPeople Healthy Hearts)

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

Goal: SHHC targets individual, social, and built environment levels of behavior change and is designed to improve diet and physical activity behaviors, assess and improve local food and physical environment resources, and shift social norms about active living and healthy eating through civic engagement and capacity building.

Strong Women - Healthy Hearts (also called StrongPeople Healthy Weight)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Adults, Women, Rural

Goal: The goal of Strong Women – Healthy Hearts is to decrease cardiovascular disease among middle-aged women through behavioral changes in diet and physical activity.

Strong-For-Life (Boston, MA)

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

Goal: The goal of Strong-For-Life home-based exercise program is to promote activity and reduce disability among older adults.

Impact: Home-based resistance exercise programs designed for older persons with disabilities hold promise as an effective public health strategy.

StrongPeople Strong Bodies

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

Goal: StrongPeople Strong Bodies is a community-based strength training program aimed at mid-life and older individuals. The benefits of strength training for older individuals have been studied extensively and include increased muscle mass and strength; improved bone density and reduced risk for osteoporosis and related fractures; reduced risk for diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, depression, and obesity; and improved self-confidence, sleep, and vitality.

Students Against Violence Everywhere (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Children, Teens

Goal: The mission of Students Against Violence Everywhere is to decrease violence in schools and communities by promoting meaningful student involvement, education and service opportunities.

Students for Nutrition and Exercise (SNaX)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of Students for Nutrition and Exercise is to encourage healthy eating and daily physical activity in middle school students.

Impact: The SNaX program shows that programs which train peer advocates to encourage healthy eating and daily physical activity in students can serve to benefit those trained as peer advocates after the intervention.

Study of Cardiovascular Risk Intervention by Pharmacists (SCRIP) (Canada)

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

Goal: The goal of SCRIP is to improve cholesterol risk management among patients at risk for coronary heart disease events.

Summer Search (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Educational Attainment, Teens, Urban

Goal: The mission of Summer Search is to find resilient low-income high school students and inspire them to become responsible and altruistic leaders by providing year-round mentoring, life-changing summer experiences, college advising, and a lasting support network.

Supervised Injection Sites (Vancouver, British Columbia)

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

Goal: Insite’s mission is to provide a safe environment for people to inject drugs and thus reduce injecting activity in public while linking drug users to health care services such as primary care, addiction counseling and treatment.

Impact: Opening supervised injected facilities have resulted in significant reductions in public injection drug use related issues and increase in referrals to social services and detoxification programs in Vancouver.

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.