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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.

Practices that were submitted by local partners are listed first and will have a green box below them that indicates they are local. Users can also use the search features to find promising practices from across the country.

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Picture Me Healthy (Madera County, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve immunization rates in Madera County.

Police Homeowner Loan Program (Columbia, SC)

Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention

Goal: The goal of this program is to encourage police officers to reside in low-income neighborhoods in order to reduce criminal activity.

Portland's Local Action Plan to Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions (Portland, OR)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air, Urban

Goal: The 2001 action plan, which is more aggressive than the Kyoto Protocol, calls for a 10 percent reduction below 1990 carbon dioxide emissions by 2010.

Postponing Sexual Involvement/Human Sexuality Educational Series (Atlanta, GA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Family Planning, Teens, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to delay sexual activity among adolescents.

Pregnancy Partners Patient Navigator Program (Clark County, WA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Women

Goal: The primary objective of Pregnancy Partners is to increase first trimester prenatal care among low-income pregnant women.

Impact: Pregnancy Partners provides women with the assistance needed to overcome barriers to prenatal care, including referrals for need-based assistance.

Project Joy (Baltimore, MD)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Wellness & Lifestyle, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Project Joy is to improve cardiovascular lifestyle risk factors among African American women.

Project ORE (San Francisco, CA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Teens, Women, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of Project ORE is to use a friendship-based sexual education intervention to prevent HIV/STI transmission in high-risk urban African American adolescent girls.

Project SOAR Mentoring Program for Youth (Galveston, AZ)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Student Performance K-12, Children, Teens

Goal: The goal of Project SOAR is to promote academic success among youth at Galveston Elementary School.

Project SWAT (Share the Work to Alleviate the Threat) (Erie County, NY)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants

Goal: The goal of Project SWAT is to reduce the population of mosquitoes potentially carrying West Nile Virus by applying larvicide to common breeding habitats.

Provider Intervention to Improve Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates Among African American Patients (Washington D.C.)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of this intervention is to improve colorectal cancer screening rates for African Americans.

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.
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