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 / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends school and organized child care center-located vaccination programs based on strong evidence of effectiveness in increasing vaccination rates, and in decreasing rates of vaccine-preventable disease and associated morbidity and mortality.
The updated CPSTF recommendation is based on findings from 27 studies in which vaccination programs in schools or child care centers:
-Provided vaccinations on site
-Were administered by a range of providers including school health personnel, health department staff, and other vaccination providers
-Were delivered in a variety of different school and organized child care settings
-Delivered one or more of a range of vaccines recommended for children and adolescents, and
-Included additional components such as education, reduced client out-of-pocket costs, and enhanced access to vaccination services
School- and organized child care center-located vaccination programs may be most useful in improving immunization rates among children and adolescents for new vaccines, and vaccines with new, expanded recommendations (such as the annual immunization for seasonal influenza) where background rates are likely to be very low and improvements in coverage are needed.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Immunizations & Infectious Diseases
Goal: Vaccination programs in WIC settings include the following:
-Assessment of infants’ and children’s immunization status
-On-site vaccinations or referral to vaccination providers
-Additional interventions such as client reminder and recall systems, manual tracking and outreach efforts, or adoption of monthly voucher pickup schedules that require more WIC visits when vaccinations are not up-to-date
Vaccination services may be provided in WIC clinics, or through collocation and coordination of WIC programs with other healthcare services.
Impact: The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends vaccination programs in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) settings—when used with additional components--to increase vaccination rates among children.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Crime & Crime Prevention, Teens, Adults, Men, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban
Goal: The goal of the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) is to reduce the number of repeat victims of intentional violent injury by providing assessment, counseling, and social support from a multi-disciplinary team.
Impact: Patients who participated in the Violence Intervention Program were less likely to be re-hospitalized due to violent injury.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Mental Health & Mental Disorders, Adults
Goal: The goal of WRAP is to teach participants recovery and self-management skills and strategies.
Impact: The WRAP program shows that the efficacy and effectiveness of peer-led self-management interventions has the potential to enhance self-determination and promote recovery for people with psychiatric disabilities.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Rural
Goal: The goal of the Winning With Wellness (WWW) project is to promote physical activity and healthier eating habits in order to reduce and prevent childhood obesity.
Impact: School wellness programs that are acceptable to teachers and utilize some already existing resources can create impact for rural youth by improving nutrition offerings in school and increasing physical activity during the school day.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Children's Health, Adults, Women, Men, Families, Urban
Goal: The goal of With All Families: Parents is to support pediatric care visits and improve child welfare by using screening tools and individual parent coaching to identify and address social determinants of health. Specific program objectives are to improve family functioning generally while specifically focusing on improving protective factors and economic-self-sufficiency. As part of the program, staff also work with families to increase parent concrete support and connect parents to needed physical health, behavior health, and educational resources for their child.
Research supports the benefits of using the strategies employed by With All Families: Parents (i.e., screening, resource navigation, and parent coaching) to improve family welfare by addressing underlying risk factors related to poverty and access to resources. For example, programs designed to provide screening and resource navigation support are associated with reduced social needs, improved child health and decreased child hospitalization visits. In light of evidence suggesting that social factors may in fact play a larger role in determining one’s health than medical care, programs that target these social factors, such as With All Families: Parents, are becoming increasingly important.
References
Garg, A., Toy, S., Tripodis, Y., Silverstein, M., & Freeman, E. (2015). Addressing social determinants of health at well child care visits: a cluster RCT. Pediatrics, 135(2), e296-e304.
Gottlieb, L. M., Hessler, D., Long, D., Laves, E., Burns, A. R., Amaya, A., ... & Adler, N. E. (2016). Effects of social needs screening and in-person service navigation on child health: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA pediatrics, 170(11), e162521-e162521.
Pantell, M. S., Hessler, D., Long, D., Alqassari, M., Schudel, C., Laves, E., ... & Gottlieb, L. M. (2020). Effects of in-person navigation to address family social needs on child health care utilization: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA network open, 3(6), e206445-e206445.
Braveman, P., & Gottlieb, L. (2014). The social determinants of health: it's time to consider the causes of the causes. Public health reports, 129(1_suppl2), 19-31.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Women's Health, Women, Rural
Goal: Women to Women aims to provide social support for chronically ill rural women to positively affect social support, self-esteem, empowerment, self-efficacy in order to decrease stress, depression, and loneliness to improve one’s adaptation to living with a chronic disease.
The overall goal of WTW is to use technology to enhance the potential for rural women to more successfully adapt to their chronic illnesses through computer-based support and education research by providing support groups and health education via the Internet.
Impact: The WTW project shows that computer-based interventions can result in improved self-esteem, social support, and empowerment among rural women with chronic illness.
Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Public Safety, Children, Teens, Adults, Families, Urban
Goal: The goals of this program are three-fold: first, to remove unwanted improperly stored guns from homes; second, to educate the community about the increased risk of gun-related injuries in the home and the importance of safe gun storage; and third, to identify individuals possessing improperly stored guns at home and provide them with safety information and alternatives.
Impact: This program shows a strong collaboration between health care providers and public safety offices and showcases a low-cost means of removing unwanted firearms from the community. Additionally, most participants felt their homes were safer after turning in their firearm(s).