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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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Prenatal Plus Program (Lake Worth, FL)

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

Goal: The overall goal of the Prenatal Plus Program, combined with the Partners for a Healthy Baby curriculum, is to improve birth outcomes, decrease rates of child abuse and neglect, and strengthen families.

Impact: Reduced low birth weight rate through risk reduction during pregnancy.

Reach Out and Read: Palm Beach (Palm Beach)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Literacy, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The mission of Reach Out and Read is to help prepare young children to succeed in school, by partnering with physicians to encourage parents and children to read aloud together.

Parent-Child Home Program: Palm Beach (Palm Beach)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: To prepare children of disadvantaged families for academic success and to strengthen families through intensive home visiting.

Impact: The Parent-Child Home Program builds school readiness, starting from the home. PCHP utilizes a non-directive, in-home modeling approach that encourages children's development, builds meaningful relationships between parents and children, and allows underserved families to access educational early-childhood services.

Community Voice: Palm Beach (Palm Beach)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Maternal, Fetal & Infant Health, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: Community Voice is a grassroots program that utilizes community residents to provide factual perinatal information throughout the community in an effort to reduce African American infant mortality.

Green Flag Incentive Program (Long Beach)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of the Green Flag Incentive Program is to reduce air pollution in communities surrounding the Port of Long Beach.

Foster Children's Project (Palm Beach)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Governance, Children, Urban

Goal: To advocate for children and help them resolve their most pressing legal problem: being in the custody of the state when they need to be in the custody of a family - biological or adoptive - within the 12 months provided by law.

Impact: Children represented by the Foster's Children Project were more likely to exit the foster system to permanency due to higher rates of adoption and long-term custody, but not reunification, than their peers not represented by FCP.

Mailed Psychoeducational Intervention for Colorectal Cancer Screening (England)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Cancer, Adults

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve colorectal cancer screening rates among older adults.

Impact: Participants in the intervention group had significantly higher colorectal cancer screening attendance, as well as having more positive attitudes about screening and placing a higher priority on screening.

Healthy for Life (Orange )

Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children, Teens, Families

Goal: Healthy For Life is school and community-based intervention program that promotes proper nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle habits in order to reduce childhood obesity in Orange County, CA.

Partners Clinic (St Lucie County, FL)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Health Care Access & Quality, Adults

Goal: The goal of this program is to improve access to health care for uninsured and underinsured adults.

Quality Counts (Palm Beach)

Filed under Effective Practice, Education / Childcare & Early Childhood Education, Children, Urban

Goal: 1. To produce positive outcomes for children.
2. To provide consumer education to help parents recognize, expect and seek out quality in a childcare setting and to articulate the standards for quality to childcare providers and parents.
3. To define, advocate for and obtain the resources necessary to encourage, support and promote quality early care and education.

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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