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.
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.
Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Goal: The Rhode Island process builds on a recent agreement among all the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers to reduce greenhouse gases in the region to 1990 levels by 2010, 10% below those levels in 2020, and by as much as 75% over the longer-term.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goals of the program are: 1) to promote abstinence maintenance among sexually abstinent students and encourage safer sex practices to sexually active students, 2) compare the effect of RAPP when taught by different providers, and 3) to explore the factors that impact a student's decision to engage in sexual activity.
Impact: Regular teacher-taught male (p=.001) and female students (p=.05) and peer-taught male students (p=.02) had the highest rates of delaying the onset of sexual activity.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Families, Urban
Goal: The objective of this study was to examine the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of the School-Based Asthma Therapy (SBAT) program compared with usual care.
Impact: School-Based Asthma Therapy resulted in 158 symptom-free days per month per 100 children and a cost-effectiveness of $10 per symptom-free day.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: Shape Up SF aims to reduce health disparities by creating healthy eating and active living environments and improving physical activity and nutrition.
Impact: Shape Up SF implemented Safe Routes to School, Bayview HEAL Zone, PE4SF, Rethink Your Drink, Southeast Food Access (SEFA) Working Group, SEFA Food Guardians, and Walking Challenge, and increased physical activity and access to healthy foods in San Francisco.
The Character Effect: A Universal Social-Emotional Learning Program for Elementary School Students (Greater Cincinnati Area (SW OH, Northern KY))
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education, Children, Urban
Goal: The goal of The Character Effect is to foster the development of students’ social-emotional skills, improving their behavior and readiness to learn in the classroom.
Filed under Good Idea, Community / Transportation, Older Adults
Goal: The purpose of Transportation Solutions for Caregivers: A Solutions Package for Volunteer Transportation Programs, is to provide some guidance and basic information to existing volunteer programs as well as those planning to start new ones. Through such programs, Easter Seals aspires to help communities meet the transportation needs and preference of older adults and their caregivers who reside therein and maintain a mobile older population.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Families
Goal: Triple P aims to prevent maltreatment and behavioral, emotional and developmental problems in children by strenghtening the knowledge, skills and confidence of parents.
Impact: The program found a 25-35% reduction in child maltreatment, child maltreatment related hospitalizations and injuries, and foster home placements of children for young children at two-year followup of the program.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Children, Teens, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural
Goal: The Unused Medications Repository, administered by Community Health Center of Southeast
Kansas, provides donated medications free of charge to eligible clinics in Kansas.
Impact: Over $20 million worth of prescription medications have been donated to low-income and uninsured Kansans.
Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Teens, Urban
Goal: The mission of 826 National is to help children ages 6-18 develop their writing skills, and to help teachers get their students excited about writing. The mission is based on the understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.