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 / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens
The goal of this program is to reduce alcohol misuse among adolescents.
Middle school students who receive the curriculum have increased knowledge about alcohol misuse when compared to a control group. Students who received programming in the 10th grade had significantly increased alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, decreased alcohol misuse, and increased refusal skills. During their first year of driving, students who received the curriculum were involved in fewer serious traffic or drug offenses than students in the control group.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Oral Health, Children
The goal of the Arizona Dental Sealant Program is to reduce dental caries in children.
Filed under Good Idea, Education / Student Performance K-12, Teens, Urban
The goal of the Arts Residency Interventions in Special Education (ARISE) Project is to help youth develop creative expression, critical thinking, and basic learning through the arts.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Adolescent Health, Teens
The mission of the ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives) program is to promote healthy sports nutrition and discourage the use of body-enhancing substances among middle and high school female athletes.
Participation in the ATHENA program results in significant reductions in the use of performance-enhancing substances, recreational drugs, diet pills, tobacco, and alcohol among female teen athletes. Healthier eating and other health behaviors, and body image perceptions were also improved.
Filed under Effective Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
To provide academic, vocational, recreational and life skills for at risk youth ages 12-21 in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Children
The Be a Star program was developed to help preadolescents gain the knowledge and skills necessary to resist drugs.
During the third year of the evaluation, very strong differences emerged between intervention and control groups. The treatment groups scored significantly higher on the scales rating family bonding, pro-social behavior, self-concept, self-control, decision-making, emotional awareness, assertiveness, cooperation, attitudes toward drugs and alcohol, self-efficacy, attitudes toward African-American culture, and school bonding.
Filed under Effective Practice, Health / Wellness & Lifestyle
To increase quality of life and longevity among members of a community through community-wide interventions which address community, social network, habitat, and inner self.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Women
The Body Project is a dissonance intervention designed to help women in high school and college resist societal and cultural pressures to conform to an idealized notion of what it means to be 'thin' and to help increase body acceptance. A reduction in thin-ideal internalization should result in reduced use of unhealthy weight-control behaviors, decreased eating disorder symptoms, and overall increase in mood and well-being.
The Body Project program has yielded numerous significant benefits at posttest and 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years after program implementation. These include significant reductions in body dissatisfaction, bulimic symptoms and psychosocial impairment compared to control group participants.
Filed under Good Idea, Health / Physical Activity, Teens, Urban
The goal of Brainfood is to engage young people in healthy, creative cooking activities to build life skills and promote healthy living.
CDC COMMUNITY GUIDE: Promoting Health Equity, Education Programs and Policies: Full-Day Kindergarten (USA)
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Children
Children in low-income families often experience delays in language and other development by the age of three. Compensating for these delays before children begin regular schooling can be critical to providing them with equal opportunities for lifelong employment, income, and health.
Outcomes included self-confidence, ability to work or play with others, independence, and school attendance by the end of kindergarten or the beginning of first grade.