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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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Heaven's Loft (Little Rock, AR)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Children, Rural

Goal: The goal of Heaven's Loft is to encourage low-income expectant mothers to receive prenatal care, well-baby care, immunizations, health screenings, and educational classes on childbirth, breastfeeding, and infant/child care and parenting.

Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Urban

Goal: The goal of HELPS Programs is to strengthen students’ reading fluency so they will be better able to focus on and improve other important reading skills, including comprehension.

Impact: HELPS is a supplemental curriculum that improves students reading fluency, a commonly neglected aspect of children's core reading curriculum, in order to help them become successful readers.

Hepatitis B ESL Education Curriculum for Chinese Immigrants (Canada)

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

Goal: To educate the Chinese Canadian immigrant community on Hepatitis B knowledge and to promote Hepatitis B testing through ESL curriculum.

Impact: The Chinese immigrant population in North America has a rate of Hepatitis B infection that is 10 times higher than the general population's rate of approximately 0.5 percent. The Hepatitis B ESL curriculum is effective in increasing knowledge about Hepatitis B among Chinese immigrants in Canada.

Hip-Hop to Health Jr (Chicago)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Goal: The goal of Hip-Hop to Health Jr is to reduce gains in BMI in preschool minority children.

HIV Prevention Intervention for African American Adolescent Girls

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens, Women

Goal: The intervention aimed to reduce sexual risk behaviors, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and pregnancy, and enhance mediators of HIV-preventive behaviors.

HIV/STD Risk Reduction Interventions for African American and Latino Adolescent Girls (Philadelphia)

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

Goal: The goal of this intervention was to reduce self-reported unprotected sexual intercourse among African American and Latino adolescent girls.

Impact: Skill-based HIV/STD interventions can improve condom-use and reduce sexual risk behaviors, along with STD rates, among African American and Latino teen girls in clinical settings.

Holistic Health Recovery Program (New Haven, CT)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Urban

Goal: The goals of the Holistic Health Recovery Program are to promote health and improve quality of life of injection drug users.

Impact: Implementation of the program resulted in a decrease in addition severity, a decrease in risk behavior, and significant improvement in behavioral skills and quality of life.

Hospital Diversion Initiative (Kansas City, MO)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: The goal of the Hospital Diversion Initiative is to connect individuals who chronically utilize the inpatient and emergency rooms with outpatient care.

Impact: After three months in the program, participants showed a 66% reduction in ER visits, 68% reduction in inpatient hospital stays, a 72% decrease in homelessness, an 18% reduction in unemployment, and a 66% decrease in past 30 day arrests. More than 350 individuals have been served so far.

Housing as Health Care - New York’s Boundary-Crossing Experiment (New York)

Filed under Good Idea, Economy / Housing & Homes

Goal: The goal of this experiment is to estimate the effects of New York’s plan for supportive housing for high-need, high-cost Medicaid recipients.

Impact: Placing people who are homeless in supportive affordable housing paired with supportive services such as on-site case management and referrals to community-based services can lead to improved health, reduced hospital use, and decreased health care costs.

Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases, Adults, Families

Goal: The goal of the HOPWA program is to help families pay housing expenses so that they are not displaced due to costs and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS.

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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