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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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EnhanceFitness (Seattle, WA)

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

Goal: The goal of EnhanceFitness is to encourage older adults to engage in regular physical activity to improve their health and well-being.

Impact: EnhanceFitness participants reported a 13% improvement in social function, a 52% improvement in depression, and a 35% improvement in physical functioning. Additionally, participants' healthcare costs were 21% less than those of non-participants after one year.

EnLace (Leadership and Civic Engagement)

Filed under Good Idea, Community / Public Safety, Families, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Rural

Goal: In an effort to prepare and engage community residents to take a more participatory role in their communities, Monterey County Health Department (MCHD) developed and has offered since 2014 a leadership and civic engagement program (enLACE) that addresses the social determinants of health, community engagement and their relationship to the health of the community.

Environmental Improvements Brought by the Legal Interventions in the Homes of Poorly Controlled Inner-City Adult Asthmatic Patients (New York City, New York)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Urban

Goal: The goal is to use a medical-legal collaborative intervention to force landlords into maintaining healthy living conditions for residents with poorly controlled asthma.

Impact: This proof-of concept study exhibits that medical-legal collaboration can significantly impact the control of inner-city asthmatics by improving their domestic environment.

Evaluating Undoing Racism and Health Equity Training with a State Health Department

Filed under Good Idea, Health

Goal: In this particular instance, the goal of the Undoing Racism Workshops was to enhance the capacity of the Michigan Department of Community Health's Bureau of Family, Maternal & Child Health to reduce racial disparities in infant mortality.

Impact: The Undoing Racism workshop helped to increase competency in the following topics:
-Racial prejudice and racism
-Racial privilege and power
-Institutional, cultural, and internalized racism
-Instiutional norms and practices
-Racial health disparities
-Social determinants of racial health disparities

Every Baby to 1

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Adults, Women, Men, Older Adults, Families

Goal: Every Baby to 1 works to ensure every infant survives and thrives during their first year of life. Every Baby to 1 engages the faith community to develop education efforts and initiatives that address infant mortality. As a part of this, Every Baby to 1 promotes the "3 S" approach of Safe Sleep, Safe Space, and Social Support to reduce the risk of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID).

Every Little Step Counts (Phoenix, AZ)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity, Children, Teens, Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Urban

Goal: To create a culturally appropriate healthy lifestyle educational program for Latino adolescents at highest risk for Type 2 Diabetes.

Impact: The promising findings of this program suggest that a community-based diabetes prevention program for obese Latino youth is a feasible strategy for improving health in this high-risk population.

Examining Health Care Costs Among MANNA Clients and a Comparison Group

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Physical Activity

Goal: MANNA uses nutrition to improve health for people with serious illnesses who need nourishment to heal. By providing medically tailored meals and nutrition education, we empower people to improve their health and quality of life.

Impact: MANNA members report significant health care cost reductions due to improved health.

Explore. Define. Measure: An Integrated Curriculum for the Elementary Classroom (St. Louis, MO)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Respiratory Diseases, Children, Urban

Goal: The EDM program integrates asthma education into elementary school core curriculum with the intentions of raising asthma awareness and increasing asthma management knowledge.

Impact: The EDM program provides students the opportunity to increase knowledge and develop health literacy about asthma as well as expand the availability of resources for teachers.

Families And Schools Together (FAST) (USA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Community / Social Environment, Children, Adults

Goal: The overall goal of the FAST program is to intervene early to help at-risk youth succeed in the community, at home, and in school and thus avoid problems such as adolescent delinquency, violence, addiction, and dropping out of school.

Impact: FAST has generally improved aggressive behaviors and increased positive behaviors amongst participants as reported by teachers and parents.

Families in Action (Kennesaw, GA)

Filed under Evidence-Based Practice, Health / Alcohol & Drug Use, Teens, Rural

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent substance abuse among youth.

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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