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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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Quality Improvement Project to Improve the Immunization Rate in the Women, Infant, and Children Program (Reno County, KS)

Filed under Good Idea, Health / Children's Health, Children, Families, Urban

Goal: The goal of this program is to increase the immunization rate of WIC children.

Impact: The WIC immunization rate for 2 year olds increased from 33% in the 3rd quarter of 2011 to 83% in the 4th quarter of 2012. The no-show rate for WIC appointments decreased from 68% to 27.6%.

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Built Environment, Adults

Goal: The mission of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is to create a nationwide network of trails from former rail lines and connecting corridors to build healthier places for healthier people.

Impact: Rails-to-Trails Conservancy encourages people of all ages and abilities to get outside and be active on a rail-trail. The organization serves 150,000 members and supporters on over 20,000 miles of rail-trail.

Reach for Health Community Youth Service (New York City, New York)

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

Goal: The goal of the Reach for health Community Youth Service program is to reduce risky sexual behaviors among urban Latino and African American youth.

Impact: Long-term impact has been recorded among participants after two years: this includes delayed initiation of intercourse and reduced frequency of intercourse among sexually active adolescents.

Real AIDS Prevention Project (RAPP)

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

Goal: The goal of the Real AIDS Prevention Project is to help women and their partners reduce their risk for HIV infection.

Impact: Community-level interventions may be an effective way to reach large numbers of women and change their condom-use behaviors, particularly their behaviors with regard to communication with main sex partners.

Residential Student Assistance Program

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

Goal: The goal of this program is to prevent and reduce substance use and abuse among high risk, multi-problem adolescents placed in residential child care facilities.

Impact: One evaluation showed that adolescents participating in RSAP showed significant reductions in their use of alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco from pretest to posttest measures.

Safer Homes Project (Pacoima)

Filed under Good Idea, Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants, Children, Teens, Adults

Goal: The mission of the Safer Homes Program is to help residents to create healthy comes for their families in order to prevent environmentally related health problems such as lead poisoning, asthma, mold, and moisture.

Safer Sex (Boston, MA)

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

Goal: The goal of the Safer Sex project is to increase condom use, prevent recurrent STDs, and eliminate or reduce risky sexual behaviors among adolescent females that have been diagnosed with an STD.

Impact: The Safer Sex project shows that individualized safer sex interventions may improve condom use and decrease the number of partners among adolescent girls who have had an STD.

School-Based Intervention to Promote Tooth Brushing (Scotland)

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

Goal: The goal of this intervention was to reduce dental caries among children by promoting twice daily tooth brushing.

Impact: Supervised tooth brushing and positive reinforcement in a school setting decreased the rate of dental caries in participating children.

Seropositive Urban Men’s Intervention Trial (SUMIT) (USA)

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

Goal: The goal of SUMIT is to reduce unprotected sexual contact between HIV-positive men and their HIV-negative or unknown-serostatus partners.

SF-6 Emission Reduction Partnership for Electric Power Systems (USA)

Filed under Effective Practice, Environmental Health / Air

Goal: The goal of this program is to reduce sulfur hexafluoride emissions from electric power systems.

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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