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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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Take Back the Park (New York, NY)

Filed under Effective Practice, Art & Recreation / Sports Recreation & Parks, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to provide positive recreational, cultural, and educational activities for young people and adults in New York neighborhoods.

Talking Parents, Healthy Teens (California)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens

Goal: The goal of Talking Parents, Healthy Teens is to help parents improve their communication skills with their adolescent children, promote healthy adolescent sexual development, and reduce risky adolescent sexual behaviors.

Think...Think Again Child Passenger Restraint Program (Canada)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Public Safety

Goal: The goal of the program was to improve child passenger safety.

Touchpoints: Palm Beach (Palm Beach County, FL)

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

Goal: To strengthen families of young children and the systems of care that surround them so that all children will be successful early learners and have the opportunity to thrive, regardless of their cultural, socioeconomic, physical, psychological, emotional health, or environmental challenges.

Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model (TREM)

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to facilitate trauma recovery among women with histories of exposure to sexual and physical abuse.

Impact: Studies demonstrated that TREM participants showed a significant reduction in severity of problems related to substance use from baseline to 12-month follow-up relative to the comparison group. Reduced trauma symptoms were also significantly greater for the intervention group than for the comparison group at 12-month follow-up. Furthermore, the intervention group had significantly reduced symptoms of psychological problems 1 year after the intervention.

Substance Use Disorder Assessment and Resource Navigation (Austin, TX)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Adults, Urban

Goal: To engage patients who may benefit from early intervention and/or education about substance use disorders, and to direct the individuals toward treatment options at the most appropriate levels of care.

Access to Transportation and Health Care Visits for Medicaid Enrollees With Diabetes

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality

Goal: The goal of the study was to evaluate the association between Medicaid‐provided nonemergency medical transportation and diabetes care visits.

Impact: The findings of this study underscore the importance of ensuring transportation to Medicaid populations with diabetes, particularly in the rural areas where the prevalence of diabetes and complications are higher and the availability of medical resources lower than in the urban areas.

Alcohol and Other Drug Death Review (Humboldt County, CA)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use

Goal: The goal of this program is to involve community partners in reviewing individual deaths, generating recommendations for improved community collaboration, and initiating new practices.

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.

Baton Rouge Partnership for the Prevention of Juvenile Gun Violence (Baton Rouge, LA)

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

Goal: The partnership uses a comprehensive strategy with four specific goals:

1. Carry out a multi-agency law enforcement (suppression) strategy to reduce gun-related and other violent crimes committed by youths 17 and older.
2. Operate an intensive intervention program to reduce the risk factors for the highest risk youths, their families, and the community.
3. Mobilize the community at the grassroots level to address the problems of hard-to-reach families and the highest risk youths.
4. Operate a long-range prevention program that identifies, links, and strengthens existing resources to serve youths who may be at risk.

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.